Richard Blanco - Somewhere to Paris lyrics

The sole cause of a man's unhappiness Is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. --Pascal, Pensées The vias of Italy turn to memory with each turn And clack of the train's wheels, with every stitch Of track we leave behind, the duomos return again To my imagination, already imagining Paris-- A fantasy of lights and marble that may end When the train stops at Gare de l'Est and I step Into the daylight. In this space between cities, Between the dreamed and the dreaming, there is No map--no legend, no ancient street names Or arrows to follow, no red dot a**uring me: You are here--and no place else. If I don't know Where I am, then I am only these heartbeats, My breaths, the mountains rising and falling Like a wave scrolling across the train's window. I am alone with the moon on its path, staring Like a blank page, shear and white as the snow On the peaks echoing back its light. I am this Solitude, never more beautiful, the arc of space I travel through for a few hours, touching Nothing and keeping nothing, with nothing To deny the night, the dark pines pointing To the stars, this life, always moving and still.