Steps
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.
——————————————————————
(c) sally young Eslinger 5/10/21
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