Three Thoughts About Walking
A walk in the homey, old oak forest can set me straight,
leaving just a memory of what I was
before entering the world of green and leaf rot.
A walk in the city can leave me with a feeling
that I trailed something profound all day,
but the press of bodies hid it from sight,
lost in the difficult patterns of commonplace things.
A walk in the high desert can lead to confusion,
the conflict between desires and needs,
like the day’s heat and the cool of night
competing for allegiance in our skin,
the inner disarray that makes us human,
Poetry on the run 
This is fantastic! I love the whole poem, but the second stanza is really incredible. Really, really incredible. And the more I read your poetry, it’s very evident you have a knack for endings. Again, I think this is fantastic!
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Thank you Bob, for your time and thoughts, they are really appreciated.
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Wow, Ron, I adore this one also.
Interesting to me is the clear delineation between three different worlds, or types of scenery or space.
In the first stanza, the forest seems to have changed or transported your sense of self. MY favorite place on Earth is Muir Woods north of San Francisco, and I feel like the place is both misty and mystical. 🙂 And there’s something old and magical and primal about old forests, so that is why this stanza resonates with me.
The second stanza has a brilliance to it in that you are playing with the “pressed bodies” and the seeking of what is hidden. I really like the phrase, “lost in the pattern of commonplace things”, and the image conjured in the second line of trailing something profound. It calls to my mind something of that spark of anonymity we all experience in the city, the excitement, the energy–but also a clear sense that something is missing. Perhaps our selves, our solitude?
And then the final stanza reminds me of those ancient desert mystics or ascetics who used to go out into the desert to fast and pray in ancient times, especially because of “the conflict between desires and needs”, which calls to mind the monk trying to find the Middle Way, or the Sufi trying to clear his mind. “…the inner disarray which makes us human”, is a great line, and also using the last word, ‘human’ closes out the poem quite deeply. Is our “human” nature that which we are either seeking or finding, in all three places? The forest, the city, the desert? Interesting to me that you ended this on the desert stanza. This poem is sooo good, that I need a drink of water! Ha ha. Thanks for posting.
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Thank you Holly, I really appreciate everything you have to say about this poem, it all resonates deeply…thank you so much.
I am reading a poetry collection about places in America and it got me to thinking about these places. The desert seemed like a good place to end this little journey. I haven’t been to the desert since I was a child but it had a profound effect on me, one that has taken a lifetime to bear fruit.
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