as if going for a walk

were something in itself

walk or don't walk

going is the verb, walking, you do it or you don't

going for an amble

going for a paper

going for tomatoes

going for good, going for bad

go and kick gravel down the road

it's one way, listen

stop and listen

i'll keep my prejudices and judgments to myself

what i see hear

to each their own

but this is fine—

blue sky, a dusty road, telephone poles

a single power line for the scattered houses, barns, sheds, what-all

trees, enough to call woods

pasture, enough to call pasture, sometimes with livestock

always with thistles

a straight road that curves

that becomes hilly,

that "t's", one walks, or can walk, and stop, and listen, one can

blue penetrates

where is that line that divides

the space between

the clear air before my eyes

to the blue i see above

and tan, a range of tans, which make up the earth

the gravely, muddy, dried roadbed itself

the greens of pasture

the grays of tree trunks, the blackish water of ponds

the tiny red berries of buckbrush

the seed heads of grasses—sage, broom, blue

the seed heads of legumes

the fallen or felled trucks of dying, dead, or harvested trees

the remnants of my earnestness—

ruts, an old hay ring, little evidence, but earnest

slow to a stop, listen, stare intently, listen

listening directs the gaze

birdsong

truck downshifting

wind

which is the sound of movement

gaze, among the subtleties are subtleties

not everything can be identified

there—a distant view, or distant views

after all, one may turn around

ridge after ridge to the horizon

ridges are the horizon

cell towers here and there making some sort of statement

about culture

but that is judgment

the county grader leaves a row of gravel pushed

to one side

there are treasures to be found

eunkyo and i would find them, instead i find them alone

screened gravel

small chunks of hematite

nearly perfect circles, concretions, of something like, but not quite, sandstone

rocks, plain old rocks

good for kicking

good for the sound they make underfoot

it is this going that make it what it is

whatever it is

going for no good reason

going to see and hear

imagine if it were otherwise

going with memories and fore-tellings

and wishes, and who is the . . .

going implies returning

that's for later

here the blue is blue

the earth is earth-toned

the grass is tan and shades of tan

and green and shades of green

the trunks and limbs are gray and shades of gray

as for the rest

the spectrum is there, it takes a bit of looking

going implies returning, also implies being

each step of the way, each footfall

here

neither behind nor in front

neither past nor future

going, one step at a time, affords being at one place

at one moment

affords a sort of stop-motion stasis—look, listen

going, you go, you stop, you see, you listen

be overwhelmed

be cold, be hot, be at the mountaintop or vale

be the heroine

the villain

be the self no one else sees or can imagine

or, be nothing

if you are alone

you are not alone

if all you hear is silence

it is not silence

if you should learn this, you have learned something

if not

so much the better—you have found what is in between

if the in-the-moment ness

is off-putting

if the zen overtones annoy

if i say

the slower you walk the quicker you will arrive

disbelieve

it's okay to doubt, it's okay to be certain

there are more ways to arrive than one—take a bus

i go and kick gravel down the road

if i didn't arrive

there would be nothing to say