Finding a Way

 The small yellow

guidebook for the

Horseshoe Trail looks

the same, a little worse

for the wear from

sharing and all

of the years.  I

turn the page and

forty years fall away.

It is Monday, 1986.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

We found pounds and

pounds of Day-Lily

bulbs in the Spring.  And

would fry them up

in butter when we got

home.  Took thousands

and thousands of black

and white photos on 

our little Tomato

Camera by Konika.

Walked over footbridges,

through streams, and on

horse trails following

the yellow hash marks on

trees and poles.  Three years

of Mondays, 8 miles a week,

out and back - sometimes 

hitching back to our car

if we walked too far.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

We wrote hundreds of

first lines of poems

and pages, to the rhythm

of the seasons and the

boot-fall on dirt.

“Bury my heart in

Sassafras grave.”  

“Hear my foot-fall

on the damp wooden 

bridge.”  Talked over

the details of newlywed

drama, argued, and laughed,

and stopped often to write.

Backpacks and journals,

hotdogs and brownies, and

oceans of water in our

old tin canteens.  Toting

along labs Rebecca’s

and Isaac - if not on 

the lead, somewhere

after the deer.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

I think that  I’ve learned

to sometimes lead, and I 

also learned to sometimes 

follow.  To sometimes walk

side by side.  To sometimes

wait for the other - behind.  

The measure of life’s wisdom, 

comes from attention to what 

is needed right now, not what 

you did the last time around.

That moving on through often 

gets you ahead.  And that rain 

and snow are a part of it all.

Horseshit, and muddy paths

hold sway o’er my heart and

linger so lovely in my mind.