Tag: hiking

December 13

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IMG_3850

Not All Who Wander are Lost

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Not for the exercise or a goal

All for the release of the static

who knew I would become addicted

Wander til the ache is in my soul

Are the results ever dramatic

lost only in thoughts unrestricted

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(A Bumper Sticker Poem)

Bumper Sticker Poems – a form I created, inspired by cento and golden shovel poetry, with the following guidelines:

  • Using a bumper sticker as inspiration use the words in the bumper sticker as the first word in each line of the poem
  • The theme of the poem may or may not have anything to do with the message of the sticker
  • Title should be the words of the bumper sticker
  • Should be rhymed
  • 9 syllable lines
  • Number of lines depends on number of words on the bumper sticker

November 19

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Decisions

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Two roads diverged in a wintery wood

They will converge again with different tales

One trail to the creek, one between hardwoods

One should keep your feet dry, boulders to scale

Other entails wet rocks hops and strong deadwood

Each would be a challenge, now to pick a trail

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(A Wreathed Sestet with a nod to Robert Frost)

September 22

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Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)

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The day autumn descends

On the northern hemisphere I wander

My favorite trail noticing the autumn colors just emerging.

Native wildflowers abuzz with bees and bugs and birds. Equally beautiful

Are the strangers to this forest, this meadow, this trail.

*

They’re beautiful but they’re destructive

*

These plants distract wildlife from the sustaining meal.

They colonize our woodlands.

Dominating our disturbed soils left after progress

Moved through. They’re controlled in their homelands

By soil fungus, airborne disease or leaf eating insects

But here along this trail as far as the eye can see they are unchecked.

To that eye untrained they are part of this splendid autumn landscape.

*

They are destructive but they are beautiful.

*

Cannot stop global trade introducing

These plants to our nature. Cannot

Eradicate the unwelcome guests like so many ants

To a spring kitchen. Cannot stop the birds with a new found taste

From feeding and dropping exotic seeds.

Cannot just breathe and take in the beauty?

*

They’re beautiful, but they’re destructive.

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(A Bop Poem)

August 15

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Fallen Fungus

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Oh dear the mushroom has been uprooted

Some careless walking has it uprooted

It sure looks like it’s been hiking-booted

The soft pine needle ground buffered its fall

It’s squat, short and stout with not far to fall

Do you think the person noticed it at all?

Amazingly for this organism

This is not death for this organism

Regardless of our own barbarism

Miles of mycelium supporting

Acres of hyphae supporting

Nearly immune to human cavorting

Mushrooms will thrive long after we are gone

As extinct as the great mastodon

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(A Blues Sonnet)

August 5

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Fuzzy Planning

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Road trip dreams post work-day reality

Planning the vacation but not too much

Where might we bike hike kayak camp and such

So grateful for our commonality.

Work week starts and vacation brain sets in

With each passing day focus is lacking

Mind wanders to long days of backpacking

We can’t wait until the journey begins.

The week will go by too fast we are sure

Dreaming and planning extend our short break

Thinking of it each moment we’re awake

Oh, how many more workdays to endure?

We have maps and guides but won’t let them reign

There’s just one plan: to avoid the mundane.

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(An Australian Sonnet)

June 20

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The View at the Top

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I hike the rain slicked trail, gazing from ground to wood

Afraid to trip on rocks, afraid to miss the good

Torn between what I want to do and what I should

Looking ahead and looking back to where I stood.

*

I don’t do this enough, so I need frequent breaks

To pee behind a tree, to ease my lungs from ache

Slowly I ascend the steep, resting when calves quake

Reaching the summit, I know this was no mistake.

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(An Awit Poem)

June 14

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Cascade Trail

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The trail transforms from hard to soft

Looking up the sky is needled

Below my feet a tan carpet

*

Moss covers rocks like a carpet

Ferns make eroded stream bank soft

Pine cones dot a trail that’s needled

*

Shoulders brushed by branches needled

Hiking boots scuff up new carpet

All the green and tan make sounds soft

*

I tread on soft, needled, carpet

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(A Tritina Poem)