When I travel I tend to count things

Plaza de Mayor arches

Miles and hours

Money spent and 

Potential penury

 

It is not that the number matters

I see the difference in liminal light

Hear the lilt and length of the language

Unfamiliar tastes eliciting pleasure

or the firm conviction of non-repetition

 

But I have always counted

Comforted by the finite

A life’s tally

Wins and losses

Joys and sorrows...

 

The Unquantifiable

I do not count

Children sleeping on streets

Mothers with tears

Sirens and gunshots

Ghosts of genocides

                    These wrap themselves around me

     A spiraling vortex

                    Viewed from a distance

      A symbol of infinity