Walking Poems

I WENT OUT TO HEED THE BIRDSONG

I went out to heed the birdsong that was blossoming in the trees,
The calls and the cries, the raucous, twittering, whistling chatter in the trees
And the eerie seethe of tree frogs from the marshes, like the weird patois of Martians
In a fifties sci-fi flick—high and piercing, like guy-wires vibrating.

The fields were wet and matted underfoot, a welcome mat of grasses.

A hawk whose wings were dipped in black soared above the wetlands,
Diving and lifting, turning and gliding on the wind.

There was ice in the shaded hollows of the fields, and snow on the trail
Where it went along the north side of a windbreak,

But it was sixty degrees and sunlit and the clouds were warm baguettes
Evenly spaced across wide cerulean intervals.

In the woods the brook was swift and clear, melodious, meandering.
Young beech stood out by virtue of their last-year’s leaves still clinging,
Curled like vulvas, or shields, their ribs showing vividly, ivory against the general dun.

I was one, moment by moment, with the scene, sauntering and serene,
Inventing myself by degrees as I went.

THE GATE

“ I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
— John Muir

It was late in May and yet the day was chill
And gray as I walked out in rain
To see the budded trees and catch the quickening scent
Of lilac and wisteria, honeysuckle, apple blossom.

A pair of Northern Orioles sang a merry song
From the highest branches of an aspen,
Blackbirds clacked and started up from grasses
And wood ducks watched without alarm.

I felt that I was seeking something in my walk—but what?
Respite from restiveness? Meaning in mere motion?
The going in that going out is?
The going on no matter what that life is?

Until I climbed a hill and saw a pair of maples
Form a sort of gate I didn’t know what I had come for:
To walk through a gate of trees at the crest of a hill
Where the wind walks.