To Be of a Place

What does it mean to be of a place?
Is who we are, where we are?
How can we know ourselves otherwise?
What does it mean to be of a place, of a country?
Is the man next to me just me again,
Because we stand in the same place?
Can I not be as a man who is far away,
Because he stands in a distant place?
I have stood at the mouth of the canyon,
And contemplated my place in the world.

If where I am in any way makes me who I am,
Then the more places I go;
The more of me there is.
I am enlarged.
I have stood on the bank of the river
And looked across at another country.
I have stood at the mouth of the canyon,
And contemplated a larger world in me.

February 2020