Tag: walking

Walking by Sid Gold

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WALKING

Fortunately, you can go out walking.
You expect very little, only dusk
foreshadowing night, the murmur
of animal life at the ready, & a breeze,
its edge honed sharper than expected.
For now, solitude is desire without
fanfare. You can take stock, see things
for what they seem without the burden
of intellect or wit. You could explain
all this, make sense of it, if surrounded,
threatened, coaxed, enticed. Oh yes,
an audience—close friends or passersby,
lovers, perhaps—all suitably intrigued
enough to stick around. What could be
better? You might tell them the night
is yours alone & loneliness a form
of joy that doesn’t advertise. They may
chuckle & swear they understand.
Yo comprendo, says one, as Spanish
is a loving tongue. Do come with us,
they urge, walking toward the bright
lights, your protests, heard as little other
than the rustle of dry leaves, of no use.

*

Sid Gold is the author of four books of poetry, including “Crooked Speech” (Pond Road Press, ’18) and a twice recipient of an MSAC Individual Artist Award for Poetry. His work has appeared recently in the anthology “This Is What America Looks Like,” Backbone Mountain Review, Gargoyle and Loch Raven Review. He also has poems forthcoming in BMR, Gargoyle, Maryland Literary Review, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. His first book, “Working Vocabulary,” was reissued by the Washington Writers’ Publishing House in 2021.

WALKING THE WOODS WITH YOU ON THE DAY OF ATONEMENT by Wendy Drexler

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WALKING THE WOODS WITH YOU ON THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

The rain has swelled the scent of sod’s decay.
You squat to a toad, squashed except its head,
a wasp, eating its eye. So this is the way,
and wondrous, that the living are fed by the dead.
Here, sap binds the wounded flank of a maple.
Here, lichen day-glows the dark wet bark
of a fallen branch. We thread past a kettle
pond once ripped by glaciers. Mosquitoes mark

my arm. I’m their chance, as I try to greet
my fear, slow impatience. I can’t plug
each leak. We’re here, your heart and mind beat
irregular time that wears us with a shrug
the way these branches must submit to air.
Next year? I hadn’t meant to make a prayer.

*

Wendy Drexler’s third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, South Florida Poetry Review, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in numerous anthologies. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.