peregrine

Falco peregrinus

(stock photo)

peregrine - having a tendency to wander (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

peregrinatio - "going forth into strange countries" . . . a characteristically Irish form of asceticism. The Irish peregrinus, or pilgrim, set out on his journey, not in order to visit a sacred shrine, but in search of solitude and exile. His pilgrimage was an exercise in ascetic homelessness and wandering. (Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters, p. 94)

Closing my phone for the umpteenth time today, putting away pen and date book, and beginning the next errand of necessity,

I wonder:

What was it like for those old ones

when foot took leave of the shore,

and land fell off the edge of the sea,

and night pressed in

from above and beneath?