Among the most ancient uses for language are descriptions of places, when a person has experienced something he or she wants to tell somebody else about. Some of these get condensed and transformed into poetry, and here’s a good example, by Susan Kolodny, a poet from the Bay Area of California. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Koi Pond, Oakland Museum

Our shadows bring them from the shadows:

a yolk-yellow one with a navy pattern

like a Japanese woodblock print of fish scales.

A fat 18-karat one splashed with gaudy purple

and a patch of gray. One with a gold head,

a body skim-milk-white, trailing ventral fins

like half-folded fans of lace.

A poppy-red, faintly disheveled one,

and one, compact, all indigo in faint green water.

They wear comical whiskers and gather beneath us

as we lean on the cement railing

in indecisive late-December light,

and because we do not feed them, they pass,

then they loop and circle back. Loop and circle. Loop.

“Look,” you say, “beneath them.” Beneath them,

like a subplot or a motive, is a school

of uniformly dark ones, smaller, unadorned,

perhaps another species, living in the shadow

of the gold, purple, yellow, indigo, and white,

seeking the mired roots and dusky grasses,

unliveried, the quieter beneath the quiet.

I don’t know how many of you like to travel, but I love it. (You may have guessed that from some of my posts.) I don’t do as much of it as I’d like to, and until the day comes when I can take off on a whim for parts unknown, I’ll make do with armchair travel—which, come to think of it, would be good for those who do not want to travel, but would like to broaden their knowledge of the world in general.

Of course, reading books and watching movies set in different cities and countries is one of the best ways to get a taste of a location. My favorite getaway movies include Shirley Valentine, My Life in Ruins and Under the Tuscan Sun.  For books, I often return to old favorites The Enchanted April (also an excellent movie) or one of Mary Stewart’s older novels, set in Greece: This Rough Magic, The Moon-Spinners or My Brother Michael, for example.

Now, however, there are even more ways to get your travel fix without leaving your comfortable home. The internet has brought us closer together in a number of ways—there are websites devoted to cities, counties and nations with photos that can transport you there with the click of a mouse.

If you’re feeling really ambitious, you could learn a language. Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur and Tell Me More are three well-respected, fee-based options. You could also check out free podcasts on iTunes and elsewhere, or check out websites such as learnalanguage.com.

My current method of enjoying armchair travel is Laure Ferlita’s Imaginary Trip to Greece (see Imaginarytrips.com for a list of all Laure’s terrific classes). Not only am I improving my sketching skills, I’m also learning more about Greece with every lesson.

Whether I’m looking at someone else’s pictures or creating my own, armchair travel keeps me (somewhat) satisfied in between actual trips. How do you satisfy your yen for travel?