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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.
XXXBut even Ibn Battuta, if here, would agree
XXXDetours 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.

 

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The Danforth Review is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All content is copyright of the person who created it and cannot be copied, printed, or downloaded without the consent of that person. See the masthead on the submissions page for editorial information. All views expressed are those of the writer only. International submissions are encouraged. The Danforth Review is archived in the Library and Archives Canada. ISSN 1494-6114. 

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