For This, I Walk Outside - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[Lawrence Robinson]

For This, I Walk Outside
 
 
Not to escape the world,
but to be more wholly in it. 
Sharp cold stings my cheeks—
not like a slap, but like the thrilling burn
of whiskey as it blazes down the throat—
the kind of wild aliveness
that brooks no choice 
but to wake up to life,
to champion it, to know life
as the most wondrous thing
even as I steep in the ugliness
we humans commit.
This is what life asks of us.
I walk outside to be more wholly here,
here the way the Stellar’s jay is here.
Even on the coldest day, 
its every fluffing, every peck, every head bob,
every flight is in service to life.
It’s never confused about its purpose.
I want to be in service.
Outside, everything is teacher:
the cold, the snow, the bird, the day,
this fallible, fabulous human race,
this improbable, beautiful planet in space.
To serve life, I must inhabit it wholly
and be inhabited by it, too.
As if it all could end tonight.
As if it goes on forever. 
 
         - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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