The rugged wandering heroes roam
with just the shirts on their backs--
I prefer five shirts more
stuffed deep inside the yawning pack
past road-trip clippings, ‘neath knick-knacks.
Nonetheless, I got it all on my back.
Umph! Does that still count?

Discern a person’s security:
how much they carry with ‘em?

Back in the nest,
pre-pilgrimage,
drafts of this packing list rival those of this poem.
(Traveling light and writing haiku was never my strong suit.
Which reminds me: I best bring one of those, too.)

Sometimes, I probably pack to deceive:
I feel I must slip in the sweater,
I feel I must be perceived
by the Birkenstocks I brought,
by the Yosemite ads tucked in the gospels.

--When it comes to dreams,
there seems a fine line
between the exploited, the free.--

So I long to leave,
to wonder and see,
to breathe and to be
and to learn what it means
to pack lightly.

For like me,
some use riches
to buy an appearance,
a representation of an inward poverty

as if it isn’t enough to fill our packs
with traveling mercies.