Summer Walk
Summer Walk
When I entered the day, chicory pursed its lips. The fields were sown in disapproval, dogged as my own puckering heart. I want to tell you that to walk changes everything, want to say the whole world went daisy-faced, but it’s hot and dry, I only stayed out so long. Sometimes the truth is modest, like the skirts chicory unfolds in the silk of morning— purple, pleated, revealing only a little, but loose enough for movement, and to walk always changes something.
The Prompt
Okay, first thing’s first: I know chicory flowers are generally referred to as blue. But when I look at them, I see purple. Help! Is that just me?
And now on to the second thing: if you’d like a prompt to play with, then I offer you walking . . . the word and its varied uses, the memories and associations it conjures for you, the physical action if it’s one you’re able to engage in, the sensations that accompany it. What does it feel like to walk? What if you speed your walking up? What if you slow it way, way, way down? When I lead forest therapy walks, I often invite participants to try walking a short distance at a snail-like pace, mindfully lifting one foot, fully returning it to the ground, feeling the shifting of weight, and only then initiating movement in the second foot. There have been times in my life when I was so ill that this was the only way I could walk; when I do this by choice, it somehow feels sacred to me.
If walking isn’t an option for you, what comes up when you hear others use the word? What is your experience of movement through the world? What sensations accompany it?
What are your wishes related to walking (or other movement)? Imagine that you could walk anywhere or with anyone—what does your daydreaming stir up?
Please remember that you don’t need to consider every question I pose here! Just notice what pulls you. Trust your gut/heart/curiosity/longing. I’m pretty sure that’s where poems come from.
I look forward to basking in your poems, comments, enormous hearts, and general brilliance!
P.S. Do you have a friend or two who might enjoy being part of this community? If so, please consider sending a favorite post their way!
I think I was trying to find a start to part of this poem for a while, and the walking finally helped me put more of it together. (CW: hunting, butchering)
Heel to toe,
heel to toe.
I am repeating this in my head
as I tread through the woods
following my father, trying desperately to
keep pace with his long legs
without snapping every branch,
crunching every leaf
along the way, trying desperately to
keep the sound of my strained breaths
quieter than my clumsy feet.
I could be asleep, cozy in bed
and instead I am sweating,
stumbling, trying desperately to
keep the desperation off my face.
I could be reading, immersed in worlds
and instead I am attempting to disassociate
from this one, trying desperately to
keep him from knowing how much I hate this.
I could be the one kid who sticks with it,
the one who carries this on to the next generation,
who makes him proud
but I feel like I can barely carry myself -
let alone the weight of his hope -
through anymore forest.
I have already shot a deer, watched
with shining eyes as his knife cut
through the hide, smelled the bile
as I tried to keep my own stomach inside.
He told me he would teach me how to
clean a deer one day, in the careful,
practiced way I'd seen him do so many times,
and I thought there could be nothing worse
than plunging my hands into the warm body
of a being whose life I had just taken,
but the disappointment
when I finally put down his hope,
finally told him it was too much for me to hold,
finally let it go and embraced my own,
came awfully close.
The thing is, I would have gone -
would've happily trudged along -
if he had ever just asked me
to take a walk.
"dogged as my own puckering heart." So many clever and delicious word pairings in this one, friend.
*
Walk like you mean it.
Like you feel the solidity
of 4.5 billion years of rock
beneath your feet.
Like you know that it is only
by the grace of God and gravity
that you are not flung into the void
like just another shooting star.
Like you are open to receiving
the offer of unearned sweetness
from fruit and flower that have
miraculously managed
to bloom and ripen,
notwithstanding.
Like you are dancing
to the bird's song
of perseverance.
Walk like you mean it
and also like you bless it.
Every last bit of it.