Landscape Through Changing Eyes
We walked for three hours, past the horses, the single tree behind the white picket fence, the red barn. It’s a walk I’ve done for years, noting the seven shades of green in summer, the verigated colors of autumn, and the stark and sharp angles of winter. Still there is something to learn from the dirt pathway that grows smaller as it winds higher, the left side of the mound where once I saw a family of foxes, and the acrid smell of manure and rot by the barn. Today the sky is bluer than my memory of September skies. A family walks in front of me, each holding the hand of a curly-haired child. Two bicycles pass me, their riders windblown and flushed. At first I thought of all I should be doing instead of this. Later I thought of how I should be walking outside more often. I should be, as Mary Oliver says in her poem “The Summer Day”, idle and blessed. Later the poem goes on to say, Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?/Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life? I was considering that question as we walked–a question I think about quite often as lately it seems as if caretaking and work take up all my time. How is it that each of us has the same twenty-four hours? It is true that one cannot give from emptiness. The natural world asks nothing from us except respect for its resources. How lucky I am to have vision, strong legs, a warm sweater for cool mornings. The clarity I receive from taking what is freely there in front of me will propel me through the week. I will bring it to my classes, my office, and offer it at the dinner table. May all of you do the same.
Literary Imaginings by Lisa C. Taylor 