97poems/trailwalkers
TRAIL WALKERS
Crow sits in a high eucalyptus
branch,
giving the morning his piece of mind.
I want to, but can’t,
witnessing my silence along the path.
I cannot seem to discourse
with Mother Earth. Looking about
I think, perhaps, it is because
I have less sense of her on this trail,
though this is where I usually feel her
presence most.
A biker stops to engage me in conversation.
“You look like a walker,” he says,
a comment which prompts me to look
down at myself, but I resist the urge
because I know,
the floral bra
peeking out from my white shirt,
a small hawk feather stuck beneath it,
flipped in the wrong direction,
the one which is least aesthetic,
the jean skirt I walk in every day,
the trail walkers I am breaking in,
so new that I am still singing to them.
“Oh, I love my new trail walkers,
I love them best of all.
Oh, I love my new trail walkers
’cause they make me feel so tall.
Oh, I love my new trail walkers,
yes, I really do,
oh, I love my new trail walkers
’cause they’re not the least bit blue.”
And so on.
I do not really need to look
to know myself,
a walker on the path,
my stick in my hand.
He assures me that he
is a walker too,
with tales of trails
he drives to,
and walks three or four
hours long.
An hour is a lot for me. “Well, that’s good too,”
he says to my back
as I walk away.
I have never seen
a mountain biker stop
before.
They often scare me
off the trail,
stepping too soon
into the high grass
before I have a chance
to check for snakes.
I consider them
a natural enemy,
a predator
of my serenity,
their shiny Spandex
clothes, a sheen
of sweat and sun.
My sister sees walkers
another way,
a term she uses impatiently
toward the world she looks out to
from her wheel chair,
people who get about
with an ease and speed
which defies her,
her freedom of expression
bound up in her flesh,
as mine is today.
I notice the cool air
upon my skin,
the clumps of dust
on the trail.
I do not really
have to look
about to see.
I know what is
here, what will
speak itself
when it is ready.
6/24/97