Loop Trails
Starting and ending in the same place
Everything new along the way
Views from many directions
Nothing revisited
Surprises around
Each new bend yet
The end is
Still the
Same
January 20, 2021
Tag: hiking
January 18, 2021
Point-to-Point Trail
Traveling in just one direction
No retracing or revisits
Only one chance for success
Every obstacle new
Just one perspective
Discovering
Half of life
As you
Move.
January 17, 2021
Out & Back Trails
Out and Back Trails through rocky woods
A chance to revisit challenge
Time to see beauty again
Ending where you began
Confronting past
Obstacles
Prepared
Now
December 13
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
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
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
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
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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June 26
Meditation
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Hiking is my meditation
Moving feet
Steady mind
Patterns in footfalls and birdsongs
Pause
Breathe in
Tiny flowers
Breathe out
Expansive Views
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(A Byte Poem)
June 20
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)
A Picture and a Poem 