Far Away Dirt

Above the clouds, beyond the toil,
Blue skies and water merge as one.
A flight over the vast Pacific—
For a boy from the star thistle of Penryn,
It feels unhinged from all known.

From Pullman’s quiet college halls
To the endless stretch of the ocean’s reach,
No map could ever capture this scale,
This immensity that humbles the soul.

Just yesterday, I said goodbye
To my grandpa in San Diego—
His aging frame uncertain.
I wonder if I’ll see him again.

An Asahi beer with my cousin—
We laughed, in that old hot tub.
A month ago, I wore a cap and gown,
The first to graduate in my family,
Now clutching a gift from my professor:
A season abroad in the Orient.

Passports stamped, vaccines taken,
Plans hastily patched together.
A summer of love ended in a bittersweet hug,
Leaving me a young boy, standing alone
At life’s prism, its endless choices waiting.

My mom fretted, unsure what to do.
Dad leaned on his time in uniform.
But even they knew this was different:
A rural boy, unteathered in a world unknown.

The flight descended toward Taipei,
Skies tinted with smog, city sprawling below.
Commerce and language, smells and faces—
Everything was foreign, yet somehow fine.

The boarding gate read “Bangkok.”
Surreal, unknown, yet calling me home.
Above the jet-black Pacific, the plane rattled,
Caught in the grip of a typhoon’s fury,
Wrenching the sea below into chaos.

We landed in the dead of night,
Fields of rice stretching into darkness.
The air was thick with heat and scent.
I clung to the crowd at the open-air terminal,
Grabbing bags beneath muted lights.
Soon I was alone, a shadow on the curb,
Waiting for a stranger to find me.

An hour passed, then two more.
Fear began its whisper: reckless, cavalier, lost.
But just as doubt took hold, a white car appeared.
“Supapong,” he said, “but call me Nid.”
A businessman with a heart for humanity,
He spoke of oil refineries and Thai traditions.
His faith Christian, his soul Eastern,
He shared wisdom as he dropped me off—
Meditation, chi, the energy within.

The sun rose, gilding a day anew.
The world burst into a scurry of senses:
Motorcycles weaving, street vendors calling,
Dogs barking, factories humming,
The air thick with food and exhaust.

Sticky heat clung to my skin
As I walked alone, a stranger in this land.
So far from the familiar, I felt alone yet free,
Standing on the threshold of adventure.

To travel is to skim the surface,
But to live alone in a foreign land—
To surrender comfort, to unlearn and rebuild—
That is to become something new.

And so, standing in brown dirt so far away,
The boy from Penryn began again.

Nicholas Campos ~ January 2025