The Lesson of Eight Legs - Glenn Minervini-Zick

[Lawrence Robinson]

The Lesson of Eight Legs
On the steep granite
where the trail thins to almost nothing
and gravity and altitude have the only voice,
something in me remembers
eight legs.
Not the mystery of its thinking.
Not the dark body
carrying its necessities.
Only the way it treks,
how each hairy foot
touches the earth
as if asking a question.
My hiking poles go first,
lightly, lightly,
measuring what cannot be certain.
Gravel that loosens without warning,
jagged rocks hiding in shadow,
the sun flaring white against stone
until sight becomes guesswork.
I have learned this kind of seeing.
The body, given time,
widens its understanding.
It becomes more than two feet
guiding downward.
It becomes a listening thing.
Slowly, the steep trail
allows me passage.
The tarantula does not rush.
Neither do I.
By the time the slope releases me
into a meadow,
I am smaller than when I began,
and more awake,
held in the quiet wisdom
of touching first,
then stepping.

	- Glenn Minervini-Zick
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/poetrylovers/attachments/20260312/e346043f/attachment.htm>