This week I went for a lunch-hour winter walk in the Arboretum. It had been a while since visiting there. I took a few photographs and share them here along with a haiku poem.
her fragile fingers
shuttle weaves through forest edge
whole and half notes dance
creek’s whispering breeze
thaw reveals Moscow Mountain
melting moonlight -drip
waters thaw and freeze
boiling bubbles flowing veins
color slips to gray
the old oils flow wet
a freshly painted canvas
Palouse winter fog
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calving snow and ice
in the blinding snow -beating
melting metal heart
a blooming flower
into the sky reaching…
the frail old willow
1
Walking, walking. /
When I search online for the benefits of walking, I find many good reasons to take up this healthy habit.
I have been thinking about walking since spending a week at the beach in late December. Each day I woke, ate, walked, rested, ate, walked, ate, rested, and slept.
When I returned home, I asked, “Why is walking not a thing I just do, like eating and sleeping?”
So that is what I did. I’ve been walking on my lunch hour at work three to three and half miles and longer on the weekends. I do feel I am reaping the health benefits that are listed online, both physically and mentally. I am happier when I am at work, home, or doing the shopping. I
Another benefit that has occurred to me is the experience of seeing the world around me. The one right here that I miss when I am hurrying from one thing to the next, regardless of my mode of travel. The one right here that is alive as I, right under my nose: the creeks, the trees, the grasses, and the people with whom I share a “hello.”
I wonder if this is the thing that makes me happier: not only seeing and experiencing the world around me while walking, but also knowing that I am part if it, taking care of it, no matter where I am.
On the old bridge rail
receding snow snakes across,
droplets fall below
2
Wintertime grasses
seemingly slip by the creek
dredged in morning’s snow
3
Creek crackled sun beam
sparkles under the overpass
a break in the clouds
Freezing winter breeze
an orange, little leaf caught
adorning a fence
1
Gazing out the window
wintering sage blossoms white…
with morning’s frozen dew
2
“Wait……wait……wait,” from the speaker box. ‘
Waiting to cross the street, I see a gentleman through the traffic walking towards me on the block up ahead.
A “chirp……chirp……chirp” fills the air signaling it is safe to walk. I check the traffic and go.
As the gentleman and I get closer, I notice the contrast in our clothes: I in a down parka, gloves, wool hat and mask and he in a short sleeve button up and a disheveled paper mask. We meet at the curb, his cheeks show a smile while he gives a muffled “Hello”. I return the smile and a muffled, “Hi.”
From behind the mask, “Let me tap the crossing button for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Wait……wait…..wait.”
In the water’s flow
the rising full-moon
dances
3
The old tin building
along the abandoned railroad…
mimics the winter sky
Blue Spruce falls
into a pool of green Mugo Pine…
splashing a fragrant mist
1
Does this old leaf…
…glimpse the wintering seed…
Illuminating its shadow?
2*
Missouri Flat Creek
plows the field of winter grasses…
a row for the moon
3
Along the sidewalk …
I find what the birds
were chirping about!
*Photograph and poem inspired by the practice instruction “A Ploughman on the Shining Field” by Zen master Hongzhi as translated by Taligent Dan Leighton and Wi Wu in the book Cultivating the Empty Field, the Silent Illumination of Zen master Hongzhi (Tuttle Publishing, North Clarendon, VT, 2000) 48 – 49