“Explorer” is a poem taken from Mark’s 2025 poetry collection ‘The Storyteller‘ – now available to purchase in hardback and as an ebook from Amazon.
Listen on Apple Podcasts and read a transcript
Explorer
My Poem “Explorer”
Whenever I look up at the stars,
whenever I look towards the peak of a mountain,
whenever I look at an image of The Moon or Mars,
something within me is always awakened,
something within calls upon me
to want to venture towards the unknown,
something within longs to drive me to go
where I have never been before,
and I cannot stop myself from setting out
upon an open road -
one that might see me jump inside a cockpit,
one that might see me climb a rock face,
one that might see me put on a spacesuit
and be launched upon a rocket and into space.
I have always wondered what we will find above the clouds,
I have always been curious about
what lives below the surface of the sea,
I have always been fascinated by
what artists create and why,
and I have always been inspired by
the universe of countless points of life
and the possibilities that await us on
the journey of the future that humanity
will never cease to be enriched by
as we reach higher, farther, and faster
than even our dreams could imagine…
I have always been a dreamer -
but I am also someone who gravitates towards
and likes to be surrounded by people
who are not afraid to be themselves
and who know they are different from
the majority of people they know,
because they are who influence and inspire me
to never stop doing what I do.
Exploration comes in many forms…
the reasons why we are all here
and why we want to be interconnected
so irrevocably to one another
speaks to something about us all
that manifests itself in the ways
that we seek out and look for answers,
because we are presented with a reality
that makes us feel like we are in a mindset
in which everything we thought we knew
is now in question and must be explored…
since I was a child, I have been walking through forests,
I have been following the trail of discovery,
I have been watching the world and its people
and I have seen change happen
within the blink of an eye,
and as time has gone on I have become
increasingly more interested
in decoding the mysterious messages
left behind by nature and by our ancestors
who wished for us to understand what
we can achieve if we don’t stop pushing forwards
in whatever direction we want to go -
however what we might uncover might not be what, nor where,
we expected to find what have been unconsciously looking for.
I have never let anything, nor anybody,
stop me from being who I have always felt I should be:
someone who feels at home while outdoors;
someone who can be happy and content
while delving into my own thoughts
and wondering what I will do
with what will inevitably emerge
from the event of creation in my imagination;
someone who always remembers where I have been -
which is why I seldom feel lost;
someone who never stops finding something,
or someone, to be inspired by;
someone who can go somewhere
and repeatedly be struck by a deep
and profound feeling of awe.
I have always been, and I always will be,
someone who is a voyager,
someone who is a discoverer,
someone who is a wanderer,
someone who is the definition of an explorer.
My Poem “Trekker”
I have always been a trekker…
whether it be through a city of stars
or across an ocean of light,
I have always allowed my thoughts,
my dreams, and my instincts
to dictate what I should do and when…
over the years I have unflinchingly
taken leaps into the unknown
and jumped instantaneously
through swirling wormholes
of many colours to places
of hope and adventure…
over my life I have looked
to the stars to guide my way –
like the seafarers of old –
and every time I saw the torches
of destiny align along the road of fate,
seemingly for me,
I never hesitated to believe
that I could follow the example
of my heroes and decide
to make a difference come what may…
I was instilled with a feeling
of hopefulness, optimism,
and a strength of spirit
and self-belief from the time
that I was a small child –
and as I grew, as I looked around,
as I observed, and as I wondered
why the universe was the way that it was
I naturally began to imagine
that I saw more than
what my eyes told me I was seeing,
and that is why when I look
at the vast darkness of space
I see an opportunity to be inspired
and not a reason to feel fear…
I enjoy reading, watching, and reliving
the stories of pathfinders,
explorers, voyagers, and those people
who have a natural inclination
to go where no one has gone before,
to do what no one has done before,
and those who find ways of achieving
the impossible simply by using
all that they have at their disposal
to start upon a quest
that should only be embarked upon
by those who are the personification
and the embodiment of a true trekker.
“Live Love and Prosper”
My Poem “Transient Existence”
Human beings are a naturally
transient species…
We are all always on the move…
Human beings have come a long way
since our ancestors ventured out
of the ocean and on to land
and then up into the trees…
We are undeniably always
going to be a race of travellers and explorers,
and one day in the not too distant future
the first of us will leave Earth
and found the first colony on the moon…
Our entire genetic drive
is one that revolves around
and relies upon our instinct
to take a leap into the unknown
and discover a new world
of infinite possibilities…
Our inner-space, our mind, our spirit,
our consciousness, our imagination
thrives upon our internal aspirations
and their interactions with
our outside inspirations
as we go where we go
and as we do what we do
throughout our transient existence.
My Poem “Deep Space Discovery”
I will always seek…
I will always search…
I will always be an explorer
of other world’s beyond the stars
that shine their light upon the Earth –
because, for me, space… life…
the power of imagination…
the exploration and the discovery
of the wonders of the universe
is an enterprise into the unknown
that for a voyager like me
is more addictive to my mind
and to my heart than
a sugar-rush of candy…
I have always been a dreamer…
I have always been a wanderer…
I have always seen space
as a magical and wondrous frontier…
I have always longed to journey
to another planet…
to another solar system…
to another galaxy…
to see the Earth from so far away,
to understand how truly precious
and unique our blue planet is
even in this cosmos of infinite beauty
and of infinite diversity…
I have always wanted to be
the captain of a star-ship,
to explore the universe
and revel in each and every one
of our deep space discoveries.
My Poem ‘Wanderlust’
I am a ‘wanderbird’,
I am a traveler;
when I look up at the moon,
and I see it split in-two –
one side as white and beautiful
as the colour of snow,
and the other side of the moon
obscured by shadow –
I imagine a writer, or an artist,
in the future on the surface of the moon
looking back at the Earth,
trying to capture its magnificent beauty
in photography, in a painting,
or in a verse of poetry;
and I wonder what a poetic astronaut
would think about themselves, where they are,
and what the sacred home of the human race means.
Whenever I have looked up at the moon,
I have never been able to stop myself
from wishing that I were there;
if someone were to offer me
a ticket to the moon,
so that I could look back with love
at our beautiful blue marble,
I would suit-up,
and be in the cockpit of the rocket like a shot!
I am an explorer,
I always have been – even if it were only
imagined journeys that I embarked upon,
every expedition was one that I was excited about,
and nothing was going to stop me;
I have always been a great navigator –
I have always been able to find my way
to where I wanted to go,
and even from a young age
I understood there where you are going
is not the important part:
the thing that makes you who you are is the journey.
Looking at the stars
has always made me want to travel between them
and see interstellar sights
that would defy explanation, or description;
the sky, the heavens, the galaxy, the universe,
is where my head has always been –
because, above the clouds and on other worlds,
to me that is where adventure awaits;
the thought of what lies in the dark
has always filled me with fascination;
the future of humanity
is something that I care about,
and where we are all going as a planet
is something that I think a lot about.
The Earth is special;
our world is the only one we have;
no matter how many planets we discover,
nor where our star treks take us,
the planet we live on will always be
the most wonderful and beautiful,
and the life that is unique
and can only be found
on this blue and green sphere
will always be the end of our celestial path.
There is more to the universe than we know;
there is more to life to be learned
than can be taught in a rush;
there are things that are universally important
to remember, no matter who you are or where you go;
there is a word to describe people like me
who live every day with an impulse in their heart
and a love for life like no other:
I am constantly in a state of unbelievable
‘Wanderlust’.
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