Saturday’s Poem: Talk About Walking
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The day cannot decide whether to be cool and foggy or hot and humid. Gauzy wisps of fog are crawling up the canyon and clinging to the coast, but a glare of bright sunshine permeates. Meanwhile, there's something funny going on with my computer, and Monte has been trying to figure it out, muttering and cursing and doing his best, but it's frustrating and inexplicable. We just now decided it was time to step away and go for a little walk outside. Where should we go? I don't know. Just a walk. But first, let me put up my Saturday poem. I had just begun to scroll through the archives when this one appeared, and I knew it was right for today.
TALK ABOUT WALKING by Philip Booth
Where am I going? I'm going
out, out for a walk. I don't
know where except outside.
Outside argument, out beyond
wallpapered walls, outside
wherever it is where nobody
ever imagines. Beyond where
computers circumvent emotion,
where somebody shorted specs
for rivets for airframes on
today's flights. I'm taking off
on my own two feet. I'm going
to clear my head, to watch
mares'-tails instead of TV,
to listen to trees and silence,
to see if I can still breathe.
I'm going to be alone with
myself, to feel how it feels
to embrace what my feet
tell my head, what wind says
in my good ear. I mean to let
myself be embraced, to let go
feeling so centripetally old.
Do I know where I'm going?
I don't. How long or far
I have no idea. No map. I
said I was going to take
a walk. When I'll be back
I'm not going to say.