"The beauty is in the walking; we are

    betrayed by destinations."

                              Gwyn Thomas

 

 

The philatelist is never satisfied with his collection;

His joy is in the collecting.

 

Look at that man, engrossed and snowy with sanding dust,

  In his garage workshop.

Why is it that, when he completes the picture frame,

  He starts immediately on a footstool?

Because, even if these oaken objects are admirable,

Neither having,

  nor having made,

   the true-squared frame or the polished stool

    is where his pleasure's found,

But in the making of them.

 

The hard-breathing long-distance runner,

  her forehead, jaw and fists

  clenched against the clock and the pain,

Runs not so much for the race's end

As for the running.

 

     It is in the nature of hobbies that

     They are never performed for the product;

     Always for the process.

 

Walking is not my hobby

With these verses as a product.

 

Ah, but there is more pleasure in the writing

Than in having written them.