I get a poem a day in my inbox courtesy of The Writer's Almanac. Sometimes I don't even open the e-mail, sometimes I do. It's uncanny the way, on the days I do open the e-mail, the poem hits home in a way that makes me think the poet (or the Almanac's editor) was spying on me. Today's poem was one of those poems. And, because I am spending my word budget on writing my book on clouds, I am grateful to have someone else's words to share. You can subscribe to The Writer's Almanac (an American Public Radio, Poetry Foundation, Garrison Keillor collaboration) yourself here. PS: Happy Birthday Truman Capote and W.S. Merwin!
Talk about Walking
by Philip Booth
Where am I going? I’m going
out, out for a walk. I don’t
know where except outside.
Outside argument, out beyond
wallpaper and walls, outside
wherever it is where nobody
ever imagines. Beyond where
computers circumvent emotion,
where somebody shorted specs
for rivets for airframes on
today’s flights. I’m taking off
on my own two feet. I’m going
to clear my head, to watch
mares’-tails instead of TV,
to listen to trees and silence,
to see if I can still breathe.
I’m going to be alone with
myself, to feel how it feels
to embrace what my feet
tell my head, what wind says
in my good ear. I mean to let
myself be embraced, to let go
feeling so centripetally old.
Do I know where I’m going?
I don’t. How long or far
I have no idea. No map. I
said I was going to take
a walk. When I’ll be back
I’m not going to say.
"Talk about Walking" by Philip Booth from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999 (Viking Press).