I like to run on woodland trails
and I like to dream – the first
often spawns the second and that
any foot-pilot will tell you
can be trouble. Just so the other day
in the pitch pine grove: there
the path’s sandy dirt widens
and blueberry bushes line the way
like small cheering throngs.
Loping easily for a change I am
scanning my fans for hints
of the blue coming crop that will
have me bent like a bear foraging
for hours. I never think
of each footfall as skimming
an inch above the earth I never think
of myself as airborne – until I am.
But now like some poorly piloted
plane I am coming to ground,
the landing gear of my hands
sadly wheelless and the angles
all wrong I am a headlong blur
as the earth rushes up. First
the left then the right digs in;
the rest of me follows; I bounce
once; dust rises; I lie here waiting
for my limbs to report. “Well,” I say
to the hushed bushes as news filters in,
“lucky again — lucky in flight, lucky
in landing” and I look back six feet
to the snaky root crossing the path,
and now I wonder about the ways home.
Flying there again seems a necessary dream.
The offending root. Photo: Sandy Stott
