Take a walk around the lake
and think about things
Not your heart rate
or your calories burned
but the things you push out
of your mind
all the rest of the time
Like where have all
the years gone
how much time have you
exchanged for cash
and when will you begin
to live?
Sometimes
a walk in the woods
is just a walk
Sometimes it is an exploration
of scientific discovery
Sometimes it is a search for beauty
a walk filled with wonder
Sometimes it is a renewal,
a refreshing of body and spirit
Sometimes it is a hero’s journey,
an archetypal quest
Sometimes it is a forgetting,
a dropping away of the world
Sometimes it is therapy;
sometimes a meditation, or a prayer
Perhaps, after all,
a walk in the woods
is never just a walk in the woods
I walked up the hill
past the old climbing tree
and down the path
into the woods.
There is a deep layer
of dead, brown leaves
from last year,
maybe several years.
They crunch under foot,
like walking through skeletons.
Yet, the buds on the trees
are swelling, greening.
This is not morbid,
it simply is
the way things are,
life and death together.
Perhaps
our insistence
on separating the two,
on fearing and denying death
is what’s abnormal.
“Home is behind, the world ahead,
and there are many paths to tread…”
-J.R.R. Tolkien
C’mon, this way
past the gate
and up on the ridge
now over to the line fence
and look what’s on the other side 
paradise
by Mary Bach
As I walk the ridge top
watching for rain
I wonder
what the tulips dream
tucked safe in their beds
for the long night of winter
what the wind sings
that inspires the leaves
to dance across along the fields
These things
I wonder
watching for rain
as I walk the ridge top
In Other Words 