q

Walking is really the only kind of locomotion that puts us on equal terms with the world about us. Our modern mechanical methods of transportation tend to make us lose sight of our relative importance.

     Fillipo de Fillipi  (1932)

p

Traveling this high

mountain trail, delighted

by wild violets.

 

 Basho (trans. by Sam Hamill)

q

Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause within our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace.

       Terry tempest Williams

p

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream,

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream.

q

Men are afraid to rock the boat in which they hope to drift safely through life's currents, when, actually, the boat is stuck on a sandbar. They would be better off to rock the boat and try to shake it loose. Thomas Szasz

p

Pledge

 

With flags everywhere unfurled,

even pinned to tender breasts,

would you think of love?

A gentle hand and kind word

are declarations of allegiance. 

Some prefer waving banners and singing

anthems while covering their hearts

with eyes closed,

"Oh, say can you see.?"

 

If we each dropped all our flags

and stood naked before everyone

would it be clear how

we need one another?

Would that fragile flesh -

mine and yours and theirs-

soft and yielding,

persuade tears to wash

away all pledges but

one?

 

     Stephen Wilder

q

Every form of refuge has its price.

     Don Henley

p

Encounter

 

WE were riding through the frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.

A red wing rose in the darkness.

 

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.

One of us pointed to it with his hand.

 

That was long ago.  Today neither of them is alive,

Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

 

O my love, where are they, where are they going-

The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.

I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

 

            Czeslaw Milosz