in search of moving castles

This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:

ActionAid India

SEEDS India

GlobalGiving

by Billy Collins

I am like the Japanese poet who longed to be in Kyoto even though he was already in Kyoto.

I am not exactly like him because I am not Japanese and I have no idea what Kyoto is like.

But once, while walking around the Irish town of Ballyvaughan I caught myself longing to be in Ballyvaughan.

The sensation of being homesick for a place that is not my home while being right in the middle of it

was particularly strong when I passed the hotel bar then the fluorescent depth of a launderette,

also when I stood at the crossroads with the road signs pointing in 3 directions and the enormous buses making the turn.

It might have had something to do with the nearby limestone hills and the rain collecting on my collar,

but then again I have longed to be with a number of people while the two of us were sitting in a room

on an ordinary evening without a limestone hill in sight, thousands of miles from Kyoto

and the simple wonders of Ballyvaughan, which reminds me of another Japanese poet