How do you find yourself when you are out walking? Is your walk a stroll, a trudge or a purposeful stride, or a mixture? Are you walking for your general health, your mental health, or perhaps to shed a few…! Again…a mix of the above? For me, it is an opportunity, as ever, to connect with my direct experience, present to what is going on outside by tuning into different bodily senses. I may hear the birdsong, see the sunshine through the trees, feel the wind on my face and smell the muckspreading – well, I do live in the country!
This poem gives, I hope, a sense of tuning in to direct experience…
Strollers
“We’re strollers, what you’d call pedestrian” they joked, as we passed, politely distanced
“Ah”, I laughed, “I try to stroll, but I always end up striding!”
Strictly speaking, not entirely true…
Just a few moments earlier, sitting down you would have found me, gazing
Through trees, their leaves laid down,
Bare bones, through which, fresh forms
upon the viewer now bestowing
As long shadows and easy sunshine
lay the land gleaming,
Dreamy spiders’ fronds floating,
Blackbird song so finely through the air fluting…
…the moment lands gently, laced with peace.
by Belinda Gammon
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