Daily Walk
Nov 25 2009


I’m a half mile in.
Down a winding gravel lane
packed, 2 ruts,
pot-holes wallowing in water, mud
now glazed with ice,
in this indecisive fall
that will soon tip into winter.

It softens in the sun,
recording deer tracks
a stray dog, running
after squirrels, rabbits,
the layered shadows
of scent
to which I’m blind.

And the steep curve
where the tires slipped, spun
dug down into soft brown dirt,
left their mark.
And unfamiliar treads,
wrong turn, someone lost.

This is like Sumerian clay
Pompeii’s ash,
inscribed with the drab routine of days
on a palimpsest tablet.
. . . Except this won’t last,
wiped clean by freeze and thaw and rain,
leaving only guesswork
each time the weather changes.

And when I tire of mud
perhaps I’ll pave it under.
Hot asphalt
smelling of rich black tar.
Or concrete
for hardness.
When my daily walk will seem that much farther,
day after day
reading the same blank page
of pavement
underfoot.