Haha the garden gnome has been found lying unconscious, in need of CPR!

How tiresome my own landscape has become!

So familiar and worn and over-exposed

There are no surprises for the lighthouse keeper

as he walks the well-trodden path down across the bay

to the jutting peninsula

to check the bulbs and polish the glass

How I long to explore somewhere new

To become lost in the thrill of a foreign land

to map the alien contours

trace the bush-clad valley, the sun-kissed hills

halting and enthusiastic as a cartographer

with a blank notebook and sharp new pencils

To run my fingertips over the exposed cliffs

across the names and dates of previous explorers

etched with hurried trembling hands in limestone

faded now like inscriptions on ancient graves

or chiseled so carefully and so deep

that no amount of rain could wash them away

I will add my name too on the sand between the tides

with carefully arranged shells with driftwood

and the bones of long-gone fish with bits of broken diving bells

Every day they will be washed away

and I will walk barefoot down to the beach again and again

day after day to write my name on the shore until the sea has the final say