It was a long journey
just to get back
where I started
but the circle
was not without
a point.
A thousand times
I stepped
a thousand times
my feet kissed
the Earth
and she kissed
me back
in rain,
growing the
flower
of my heart
until I
only
knew
love.
Walking a path
for miles
back and forth
carrying school
books since I was
a little girl.
I walked this road
sometimes running,
sometimes skipping,
sometimes in tears.
I knew every tree
I ate many
apples and blackberries
on my way.
I tripped over a stone,
and skinned my knee
when I was eight.
After years away
I walk this path
once again.
I lay down
my bag, heavy
with car keys,
wallet, glasses, and I
sit on the dirt in
mid-afternoon.
A caterpillar,
green and curious
peers out from
a leaf.
A robin hops near-
my heart strains
for the caterpillar-
and I realise
I have never seen
this path at all.
This poem came upon reflecting on ‘looking deeper’. The idea that I might see the same thing for a certain way for years, even, and one day- see something else in it. It’s a hopeful and rich feeling for me- looking deeper- but as a friend said upon reading this poem, I could never go back to the same path. True, I think, and that thought made me pause, silent for awhile.
Inky Cat's Poems 