Morning Walk

Morning Walk

Debbie Sawczak

about two hundred steps up the sidewalk from home
the branch of a birch overhangs
green grace on the heads of pedestrians
I walk straight through and leaves flash in this breeze while brushing my face
a sacrament of the birch that adorned the lawn
of my childhood home

a hundred and fifty steps on, I pass
the House of Myriad Birdfeeders
four on leaning iron standards suspended
—the talk of the squirrels who
share as a species still less than do we
leaving little for jays
orioles, cardinals
and other winged major league mascots

if my right leg doesn’t buckle
it’s three hundred more to the tai chi guy
who each morning moves with the poise of a wading
heron on the maple-dappled grass at the seniors’ apartments

Gail is out gardening
greets me with a heft of her spade while her other hand
dangles a vanquished weed
a mere hundred more to the corner
the community mailbox stencilled all over with leaves

at the third cedar hedge two hundred steps further on Mountainview
is where I’ll decide if I’ll lengthen my route
before turning around
—it depends:
on how much more bending of knees I can handle
extending of quads and calves and glutes
(physio will teach you anatomy);
restoration is always so time-consuming, so parlous slow
even with a village involved

pause for a gaze at our small-town mall over yonder:
the goal I’ve set for the end of August
we’ll sip our frothy chai lattes there
and eat butter tarts at a patio table

but I think this is all I am able to do
for today
turn
and am chased by gusts towards home

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Debbie Sawczak
Poet

Debbie’s poetry appears in In A Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets (Poiema/Cascade) and in such publications as The McMaster Journal of Theology & Ministry.

Photography by Jonny Gios