Read the poem twice: once for the flow and once to translate it into your own words.
Arriving is just leaving in reverse. We send a postcard to an address we no longer live at. We call the new key “old” after three nights. So let the plane shudder on the runway. Let the taxi’s meter run. I am not going anywhere I haven’t already been. from journeys poem analysis keith tan
Depending on your academic or personal interests, you might approach "From Journeys" through one of the following lenses: Read the poem twice: once for the flow
The “rivers are wounds” metaphor is extended throughout. Tan does not let the reader forget that landscapes hold memory. In postcolonial theory, this is known as the “palimpsest”—a land written over by colonizers, but with the original text still bleeding through. The speaker sees those wounds because he himself is one. We call the new key “old” after three nights