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Steps ***

Remember standing barefoot
In a stream or lake or ocean as the current of water
 ran cool and fast over the ankles?
That liquid, which made our planet
a home for life, beckoning us and so delightfully.

Think of walking in night, without
lights, becoming self-contained,
losing external references, seeking the moon
 or some neighbor’s window, alight still...while 
glancing quickly down to squint and know if 
the next step will continue on the pavement.

There is good reason to remember
walking barefoot in cool, thick mud —
 luscious scrunching the toes in
that earth’s batter!
There is meaning in the memory of
tortured stepping barefoot over a
length of dry, sun-burning sand...so
instantly blistering, so evil in its lack 
 of relief, at least until escaping its distance.

Think of the first challenging, trudging steps 
in a knee-high snowfall...like the first steps 
of turning to a belief in God and so much easier
 with others, then reaching a route that has been plowed.

Think of journeys of the mind, walking 
in times and on the streets we’ve never before been 
or want to imagine a return to...lively, but  yet 
non-existent wanderings, much like those 
we walk in sleeping dreams.

We cannot recall those very first
steps we took, thrusting us out of
babyhood, taken by a natural calling
 when we are too young for any conscious intent,
 having only an entirely physical desire to move...
over there...
set within a wordless desire to rise,
 innately curious to discover!

Yesterday I watched baby Emmie scrambling 
in her stroller.  Within, she sensed there must be 
some other way to subtract sitting, to move 
through the room.... Compulsion gripped 
her desire to rise, to step, even run...her legs
 kicking non-stop ready to launch...
Only  recently emerging from paralysis,  
I can sympathize with Emmie’s chair-stuck 
scrambling frustration.  It is 
the human wish to set off in motion,
 off on explorations.

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(c) sally young Eslinger 5/10/21
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