Walking Like a Poet

As I walk through Stewart Park, poetic verses stream through my mind. The elegant nature of life reveals itself in images, ideas and words. This poetic lens enthuses me with hope and forward momentum. How life in the woods lets go while it blossoms. How nature gathers itself only to fall apart. This cyclical invitation to gather together the seed with earth, the earth with sun, the sun with bark.  On this cusp of winter into spring, while the world struggles to be habitable, I walk as a poet. And wonder, what in me wants to gather together? I wonder what in my life is asking for release?

What is gathering together in you right now?  Write about that.
What is asking to be released? Write about that

Winter into Spring
 
Everything we need is here: brown, crisp leaves
that shake for release from their wintered branch,
the creek, crowded with last season’s watercress,
the emptied, broken walnut shells, the animal prints around the broken
shell, the grey bark gathering warmth from the late afternoon sun,
the orange lit birch trees
masquerading as a sunset,
the shimmering of seed and life below ground,
the sugar maple having dropped their seeds
leaving disembodied wings along the rooted path.
 
My feet make prints on the softening ground.
the grey of me gives way to
a collective greening with the possibilities of love, blossoming and release,
 
while all the disembodied parts of me come together, or try to,
 
Everything gathers inside me:
memories of camping and hikes along mountain trails,
harvesting wild berries, arms bloody and scratched, runs with dogs,
sitting with my dying cat, the taste of wild mushroom pie,
building and tearing down sweat lodges, the heat of the stones, all
in sweet ceremonies of belonging. Long walks into a night wood
alone. The changing sky, my constant companion.
 
This world is such an extraordinary banquet of
what is truly possible,
 
to realize, now late in my life
that we can only be responsible to what’s in front of us,
(and what is that?)
right now, the departures and arrivals,
the noticing and being with the gatherings, here in front of us
today

Upcoming in June: An in person Writer's Support Circle, first Tuesdays, 5:00 to 8:00 PM.  

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