A Time to Stay Diana Festa Festa Page 1   Eyes close, I see a transparent globe rolling towards me - the old measure of enticement to pack and go. But I have seen it all, huts, castles, people, an aged world grown familiar - no longer do I wish to comb the streets in search of shrines and sacred pyres. In how many exotic cities have I watched lonely nights? And there were all the words I could not decode, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Czech. Sitting before an omelet at some restaurant, I would tell myself stories and stare across the room at children cooing to a cookie, a rag doll. My nights alone, I counted stars. Now, lulled by my radio, I listen to strands in the air, and I move in arranged simplicity, my eyes resting on objects I recognize - the mirror in the carved frame, a coral stone on the shelf, Murano flowers in a vase. I watch the two black pigeons on my window sill, each with a white feather straddling the back - old friends come back to their roosting place. They like what is familiar, and do not fly to far away places.