Handbook for Explorers 7

You've travelled far, and heard wild parrots call;
Lived among people who shoot monkeys down
From trees, their darts smeared with poison,
Who hear, a mile away, the least footfall.
You've made signs of peace, risked their angry spears,
And danced and drunk, with them, fermented juice;
Repeated words that set your dull brain loose,
Shared rhythms of a hundred thousand years.
But now, your diaries destroyed by damp,
You'll wonder if your journey had a reason,
If you remember what year or season
You left behind; if it's time to decamp
Again, to get back to your starting place;
Although it will, by now, be somewhere else.