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One of the Magi

Decided to go visit the long-lost relatives  
I'd  left when I broke away from family
To find myself as a teenager.
                                                    
                          You can never enter the same river twice
                                Wanted to try and pick up the thread
              Of lost decades, catch up, hang out, break bread
                           Wanted to renew contact, like mum said
                                Progress has a cost - loss is the price

It was winter: roads were blocked with snow   
And normal temperature dropped way below -  
The very dead of winter .    
And the car - worn out fanbelt lost,
Engine coughing, tires spinning in the frost;
Other drivers were rude, without inhibitions, 
And fractious in the icy conditions.
All the hotels were filled in a trice 
And in any case charging high  prices.

                             You can never enter the same river twice
                I regretted leaving my warm apartment in Queens
    The little Italian restaurants and waitresses in their teens
   The journey seemed to be just a foolish waste of gasoline
                                   Progress has a cost - loss is the price

But I could tell I was getting closer to the old place,
Then at dawn I came down to a temperate valley,   
Free of snow, with a river and a water mill and three trees.
I checked at the bar in town
But there was no information and so I continued,
And I found the the relatives’ place in the evening
   
                             You can never enter the same river twice
                                  It wasn’t really that great of a reprise
                  Barely satisfactory to appease them by degrees
                                       With them I was no longer at ease
                                   Progress has a cost - loss is the price

Well, that was a long time ago and I would do it again 
Even though seeing these relatives 
Wasn’t really all the fun I’d thought.  
Turns out I had changed so much 
 
                              You can never enter the same river twice
                      It was strange even after we shared our meal
                 Just to know how differently they and I could feel
                               To me they were now like strangers real 
                                   Progress has a cost - loss is the price


Entered in Debbie Guzzi's contest
Based on Eliot's  JOURNEY OF THE MAGI

(6 lines have  Eliot quotes)

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