When Tenderness Is In The Moment

Travel as an idea is as old as Man,
much older of we include migration
as observed among the birds
and other winged species.

But the history of travel
that I want an account of
is by it's nature impossible
to collate and tell;
a history of hitching lifts.

Please accept the following
as one example
of what it might be like.

Recently I saw an interview
with blues giant B.B. King
where he reflected on his 1940's,
where Saturday's he hitched
from near where he worked
to the surrounding towns
to busk, playing his blues guitar,
in places where both white folks
and black folks both passed by
in order, so he said, to be heard
by the greatest number of people.
Because he had to get enough money
to pay for his passage later that day
to be back to the farm he still worked on.

He spoke of that life
with a humility that nobody
could find fault with.

Maybe that explains why
the history of giving lifts 
and getting them won't be told
-it involves accounting for generosity
about something we can't hold
except in the moment we are given it.