without my family and without my dogs
not to escape life and connections but to listen without being in charge
to see the crepuscular light under the canopy
the kind of light that could mean morning or late afternoon
as it breaks in through the foliage slanting through the trees
shadowing the truths of middle age-
one should embrace not knowing where to go
live with ambiguity though at this age you are supposed to have a path
a life design be able to see what’s around the corner
I write notes with a pencil on a notepad
instead of recording them on my phone
because I’m breathing so hard my glasses fog like mountain clouds
I get annoyed when a family laps at my heels-
not because I dislike small children as in my youth-
but because I don’t want commentary
on what I’m supposed to see and feel
I need to stumble my own way be my own council
on where Inspiration Point lies so I let the family pass
smile like I have the time they need
I startle when I smell
young people without shirts who sport short-shorts
their perfume trailing in smelly plumes masking the woods
the only place big enough to hold my thoughts
I want to stink with my unwashed skin to know my effort by smell
when I walk past a pair of brown hiking boots
resting under a tree on the crest of a hill
I make up a story about the older man
with a white moustache who moves aside as I ascend
my boots crunch the path my hiking sticks stab and spear leaves
keep the momentum going he says.
One foot on this path not worried about the future
another at the bottom of a stone staircase carved into a mountain
Sandra L. Faulkner is Professor of Media and Communication at BGSU and writes, teaches, and researches about close relationships. Faulkner’s poetry appears in Antiheroin Chic, Ithaca Lit, Gulf Stream, Writer’s Resist, and elsewhere. Faulkner knits, runs, and writes poetry in NW Ohio and lives with their partner, their warrior girl, and three rescue mutts. https://www.sandrafaulkner.online
