more than a memory

This is a poem written by one of my dear friends on this trip. He shared it last night at our good-bye meeting (yes I said 'good-bye meeting'). I was completely blown away by it. He captured so much in this poem that I could not express to you on a blog. (I do not expect for everyone who reads it to understand it all, there are many many inside jokes).

But it is a beautiful piece of work. And it might help a little to understand what I have gone through this semester and show insight to the incredible people that have gone through it with me. You will hear my thoughts later.

More Than a Memory OR Europe Semester
by Matthew Bennett

Look.
Who are you?
Where are you?
Where did you come from?
How did you get here?
Where did you stop along the way?

There’s no more time to waste
No more tears to wipe from your face
No more fears to flick over fierce cliff faces.
No more foolish theses, themes, or broken fascist dreams,
No Florentine Renaissance figurines, no more one-euro ice cream.
No more busses, no more trusses, no more Gombrich,
No more fussing with broken luggage, no more bed buggage, no more “Rubbish!?”
Oh, and no more Gombrich.

But this wouldn’t last.
I hate to say it, but it’s true.
Some things are much less like Gorilla Glue than I would prefer.
I’d say more like the scent of a flower.
Peaking ever so sweetly in the bright afternoonish hour.
Yet in few days time the flower’s power-hour ends faster than a cold, Palestinian-Israeli morning shower.
But luckily for us, we look at flowers and say “Hey, that’s a pretty looking thing. Maybe I’ll have a sniff.”
So we do. And then we walk away. [Unlike Mr. Jerusalem and Nif.]
But we’re not flowers dammit.
We’re people. If I dare – friends. Family, if I double dare.
So we employ our next level tactics, and wander from Jericho to the Eiffel Tower.
From museum halls to wherever chocolate is sweet and beer is never sour.
From Churchill’s War Rooms to Monet’s delightful flowers.
All these places spanning countless speeding hours.

But we were given something more to grasp.
So gather round children, zip it, listen.
As surely as the mountaintops of Mittersill glisten, this trip was something grand
This trip was more than just a European one-hundred-and-four-night stand. It came with a mission.
No, I don’t mean Father Serra. I don’t mean Manifest Destiny.
I just mean simply, don’t let it go to waste.
This isn’t just a memory. It’s more than traveling from place to place.
It’s something that cannot be erased.
We experienced it all, so to speak.
We learned, we grew, we yearned and flew
We turned pages, took stages, and dropped every single LotR reference from now until the end of all ages.
We toasted to friends and dreams and silly things then crashed and burned on classroom floors.
And I could go on and on and on with more of white cliffs, wrenching hearts, and watery, narrow corridors.
But I digress, that’s not what we came here for.

I came for this, you came for that, her that one thing, him the other, and those two because of their mothers.
Well there’s something we’ve been told.
Maybe you heard it earlier, maybe now’s the first time. Or maybe you heard it through the grapevine.
And, despite what you first thought,
It didn’t matter whether it was French, Italian, or Senonian rock.
It didn’t matter what we saw or ate or drank or bought.
Or even how many times Jenny rolled around the block.
Get it in your head, it was all just poppycock – compared to what That Guy had in stock.