This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth! Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic! Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here. So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!
This week I wanted to share a poem by author/poet/illustrator Dalla Clayton. He's the author of two books, An Awesome Book and An Awesome Book of Thanks, both of which are children's books. But I love them because they are inspirational! Really! Dallas also has a cool tumblr which you should check out for more of his poetry and illustrations!
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EXPLORERS by Dallas Clayton
You can’t be an explorer anymore.
Not the way it used to go down -
just being the bravest guy in the room
with a machete and a hat and a desire to walk
long distances across places no one had ever been
(except the native populations
that had been living there comfortably for centuries.)
You can’t discover Nebraska anymore.
We’ve scared off all the dangerous animals
killed them up
or pushed them to the hills.
You can’t be an explorer anymore,
unless you really want to get involved
far underground or deep in the sea.
The easy work’s already been carved out.
They’ve already written their names on the mountains.
You don’t need to be an explorer anymore
We’ve got plenty of space already
to entertain ourselves
with big scary ideas
like “what if new animals came to get us”
and “how would we fight them off.”
We’ve had plenty of time to arm ourselves
with ideas and weapons from the future,
and muscles that you couldn’t get from god.
There’s no need for explorers
just makers
protectors
defenders of what we already own.
You can’t be an explorer anymore
unless you really want to
unless you feel it in you heart
and you stop all this thinking
about how all those other guys already saw things
for the very first time
way back before you were born
and what it all looked like to them.
Unless you stop caring about who owns what
and why someone would ever want to write his name on a mountain
and start wondering what it would be like
to go out into the darkness
and get so totally lost
that you never find your way back
and maybe
just maybe
you never want to.
Not the way it used to go down -
just being the bravest guy in the room
with a machete and a hat and a desire to walk
long distances across places no one had ever been
(except the native populations
that had been living there comfortably for centuries.)
You can’t discover Nebraska anymore.
We’ve scared off all the dangerous animals
killed them up
or pushed them to the hills.
You can’t be an explorer anymore,
unless you really want to get involved
far underground or deep in the sea.
The easy work’s already been carved out.
They’ve already written their names on the mountains.
You don’t need to be an explorer anymore
We’ve got plenty of space already
to entertain ourselves
with big scary ideas
like “what if new animals came to get us”
and “how would we fight them off.”
We’ve had plenty of time to arm ourselves
with ideas and weapons from the future,
and muscles that you couldn’t get from god.
There’s no need for explorers
just makers
protectors
defenders of what we already own.
You can’t be an explorer anymore
unless you really want to
unless you feel it in you heart
and you stop all this thinking
about how all those other guys already saw things
for the very first time
way back before you were born
and what it all looked like to them.
Unless you stop caring about who owns what
and why someone would ever want to write his name on a mountain
and start wondering what it would be like
to go out into the darkness
and get so totally lost
that you never find your way back
and maybe
just maybe
you never want to.
