Notes About The Poem
For Marlene Rye’s Tornado show of pastels....
A Walker, I
a walker, I.
A walker fancying himself
a hiker, on a walk, self-narrated as
an expedition.
The incline is gentle, consistent,
insistent and yet i insist,
as i am inclined to do,
to think it steeper.
In fact, to think deeper,
about most things.
a walker, I.
Ponderosa and Pinyon Pines,
with greens so dark
they suckle the sun of light
give way as i make my way
lumberingly and less-than-limberly
uphill. From thick, ruddy-red-brown barks,
I rise through Ponderosa Pines, then,
needle-darkening, the Pinyon
mothering the Juniper.
Clambering up the hardscrabble rubble-
canyon walls a silent fortress for
sounds-
shades most welcome.
a walker, I.
The time-twisted Pinyon well below.
The needles, never solo,
their groupings of twos, of three,
in fives have fallen away
from my view- as their cones'll do.
The cones, some in pairs,
in all their very many
scents and stickinesses;
in all their very many
shapes and sizes and
sometimes pairings,
have also come and gone,
as I'd come and gone.
Their underfoot crunchings've
long since had their echoes
lost in this land;
as am I,
lost in this land.
a walker, I.
and now,
the Aspen.
my breath drawn out,
a tenuous, tremulous quaking
and lost to the stones.
it could be the elevation.
it could be the exertion.
it could, of course,
be the Aspen.
a walker, I.
i take a knee.
for breath?
for study?
no.
a genuine
genuflection.
my mouth, agape
these eyes, wider still.
words of marvel, of awe,
of God.
and no mere
psittacism this.
nose to ground, eyes to Sky;
i cry a silent cry sans why.
a walker, I.
among the chartreuse green.
among the white trunks
the Autumn yellows
buried (burrowed?) beneath
these greens; Oh! these greens!
I kneel. I feel. I feel. I kneel.
a walker, I.
now within this faithless chapel
parchment white, dappled by darkened eyes
a thousand thousand thousand eyes.
kindly ignoring, kindly witnessing...me
nonconscious meditation! egoless contemplation!
a pullulation of elation-ululation
interruption of 'me';
irruption in 'me'
eruption of me.
a walker, I.
I am anew
within this tree.
For a stand of Aspen is
One Tree.
and I stand, and kneel
within one tree
and yet,
trees seem to be all around.
a walker, I.
I found a journey
on a walk.
I found the epic
in the prosaicicity
of an afternoon jaunt.
I found the many within the
One.
I found one within the
Many.
I found me
within a
tree.
Copyright © Stephe Watson | Year Posted 2018
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