Tag: walking

Two Poems by Ted Kooser

~ ONE ART ~ 4 Comments

At Walmart

The glass doors to the store’s garden center,
boxed in by a chain link fence open on top,
have been locked for the winter, all the plants
gone, all that color, that strong geranium

fragrance wafted away, the long folding tables
nobody noticed when covered with flowers
now folded and stacked, the only things out there
in a light blowing snow this cold morning.

Why is it that winter looks so much more
like winter when fenced in, confined like this,
two or three inches of light snow on the stacked
tables, a wrapper from something or other

skittering over the white, untracked expanse,
nobody out there peering in under the leaves
or holding a pot at arm’s length to see it,
turning it into the light, whereas only a few

moments before, you came in out of the same
winter, not paying much attention to it,
but now you stand transfixed, looking out
into the snow sweeping over the emptiness.

* 

A Man Walking

Next into our lives comes a man walking,
head down, perhaps seeing the cracked sidewalk
under his feet, perhaps not, more likely
caught up in his thoughts, bare head butted
into wherever he’s going, the wind from there
fallen still as he stops at a street corner
and waits for the light to change, not looking
up at the light, perhaps reading the movements
of people around him, long coat fallen slack,
his hands stuffed in his pockets, and then
with the rest, starting across, setting his pace
to their pace, no doubt trusting in them to know
when to walk, when to slow, when to stop,
as with the others he leans into what’s next,
wherever he’s going, what he’s entering into,
one with everyone else as, all together, they
shoulder into what’s coming, but our man,
who looks to be nobody’s man, is not meeting
the eyes of all those who’ve already been there
and are on their way back, as they side-step
around him, not touching him, glancing at him
for only that instant, then letting him go.

*

Ted Kooser is a former US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner who lives in retirement in Rural Nebraska. His most recent collection of poems is “Raft” from Copper Canyon Press (2024). Forthcoming is his sixth children’s book from Candlewick Press and a book of interviews from University Press of Mississippi, “Conversations with Ted Kooser.”

Walking by Sid Gold

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

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

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

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.