traveler'd regret

Traveler's regrets

He had been a sailor all his life, a traveler trying to find
the boy he left behind in the haste of becoming an adult.
An autumnal leaf falls into a stream, follows its course
but sometimes, there is a tiny inlet where the leaf gets stuck with other debris before getting loose again and drifting where the stream meets, a river that ends in the sea, becomes a mud bank full of nutrient-attracting
red snappers.
Often, he senses the pain the world suffers at the pain of
the futility of life, to stop for a moment contemplating
He thinks the boy will know, he has lived long enough
to not chase rainbows, a fleur-de-lys is but pretty and disappears from view in a dreamy haze
Perhaps it was the voyage that mattered, not how it ends