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Posts Tagged ‘walking’

Redefining

Perhaps I thought awe required a symphony
or spinning galaxies or flagrant pink sunsets
or dropping to my knees, but today, it’s as simple
as walking beside my daughter on a quiet back road,
and her ears hurt and my legs are tired and spring
is barely a dream, but on this drab and windy afternoon
surrounded by bare branches and dirty old snow,
I feel it, reverence, how big it is, this love for her,
this wonder for the world, and I thrum
with the great gift of being human,
and the world is vaster, my god, it’s sublime.

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This, too, is Christmas, the quiet
walk on the quiet road in the quiet air.
The only carol here—
unending verses of river.
The only gifts we brought—
our attention, our trust.
This feast is for the heart.
There is a generosity to the sunshine
no candle could equal.
It’s a deep sweetness
to be wrapped in blue sky,
a deep sweetness
to share heartache, exhaustion—
something I would never wish for anyone,
and yet, this Christmas day,
the sharing of it,
such a beautiful present.

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Because it is dark
I walk in the dark,
walk with no moon,
walk with the chill
of the measureless dark.
There is peace that comes
from letting the self
be with the world
as it is, and tonight,
it’s a dark world,
a world where I cannot see
far ahead, a world
of silhouette and suggestion,
a world that seems
to cherish whispers
and relish mystery,
a world where
the invitation is
to walk in the dark
without wishing it away,
without championing its opposite,
the invitation is
to be one who learns
how to live with the dark.

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Spring in Fall


for Suzan


It feels right to walk
through naked trees
with our naked hearts
and our naked hands
and thrill in the sound
of wind in dry grass
and delight in how quickly
the clouds are shredded.

You could say, it’s just a day,
but perhaps a day such as this
spent practicing awe and openness
is what changes everything.
You step out of yourself.
Suddenly, anything could happen.

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One Foreshadowing


still seeds in the ground
all those forests
we’ll someday walk through

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Settling In




The way old friends walk together—
that is how it is today with me and grief.
We stop and admire the cloudless sky,
the flight of a hawk. We keep walking.
There isn’t much to say, so we’re quiet.
No bluster. No drama. No striving.
Sometimes we catch a glimpse
of our shadows and wave.
It’s not uphill, we’re not out of breath.
I didn’t know walking with grief
could be like this.
There was a time, I remember, before.
Now, I can’t imagine not feeling close.
When the walk is done,
there’s no need to say goodbye.
I hold out my hand. We go on.

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When in Rome




What a loss it would be
to not have born so I
would have missed a
Thursday night like this
in which my son and I
walk the dark streets
in Georgia and watch
the lightning transform
the sky into pink flares
and smell some sweet
unnamable flower and
talk about Dodge Chargers
and knees and roaches—
I swear it has all been
worth it, every second
of fifty-one years, for this
hour in which there
are no bells, no shoulds,
no other tugs except
to take the next step
down the centerline
together
while in the distance,
raps another clap
of thunder.

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charting our course
using mushroom rings—
earthbound constellations

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I see my old self walking down.
She doesn’t have a mask in her pocket.
She doesn’t move to walk six feet away.
She leans in to hug me, as if it were the most natural,
ordinary thing to do. She looks offended
when I offer her an elbow.
She doesn’t yet know how a virus
will use genome origami to infect and replicate
inside host cells with terrible efficiency. 
She doesn’t know the schools will close
and the stores will close and the streets will close
and the doors will close and it will all happen
in a week. She doesn’t know her daughter
will cry herself to sleep each night for weeks.
She doesn’t know her son will slip
into a darkness and rage she will try to carry.
How the days of her calendar will empty.
How pixilated her life will become.
How the hospital won’t let visitors in .
How she will miss her mother, her father, her friends.
How millions and millions will die. 
And that’s just the health of it.
Part of me wants to tell her what’s coming.
I don’t.
Part of me wants to hug her back,
and I can’t quite explain why I do.
Because innocence.
Because she will be here soon. 

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Daily First Step



 
 
Every morning before I rise,
I crawl into my body, as if,
inside this grown woman
lives an infant still learning
what it is to be in a body,
what it is to move forward,
certain there is a world
I want to wobble my way through,
run through, even dance,
if only I can first find a way
to stand in it.
 

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