Vol. I No. III |
March
2000
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The
Danforth Review
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Ibn Battuta's Advice to an Adventurer by Reid Cooper Friend: Any great voyage, like yours, will begin Not with the detailed planning of a route on grand charts The course of events will overtake. No, it's the heart's Compass you must first consult; calmly watch it spin, The needle, 'til it stops to point you to your path --Though it cannot say your final destination, It will guide your way, give strength and inspiration, Then leave it for your head to work out the boring math. It's a lost journey that's begun in thoughtless haste Without once pausing to orient with more than maps, Like it were "Follow-the-Leader" or racing laps, Arriving to learn your trip's been a dead-end waste. But even Ibn Battuta, if here, would agree Detours sometimes reveal just where you long to be.
Reid Cooper is an Ottawa-born lawyer now with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Most of his publications are hyper-dry public policy stuff, although his poetry has appeared in the Carleton Literary Review and Ottawa's (now-defunct) The Skinny.
THIS WORK IS COPYRIGHT OF THE AUTHOR.
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THE DANFORTH REVIEW IS EDITED BY MICHAEL BRYSON. |