Walking Mantra

A TFP poem

Edvard Munch (1863–1944), “Landscape with a Road,” 1901, oil on board.

Walking Mantra

When I was about ten, my Aunt Charlotte
gave me a walking mantra, explaining
that I was too young to sit still and chant
a monosyllabic word, or nonsensical word,
over and over in pursuit of enlightenment.
I walked all over the place, the railroad
tracks behind my grandfather’s house,
the football field nearby where my dad
got beat up by his older brother John,
not out of malice but just a lesson
to be learned. I walked past the highway
that I wasn’t supposed to walk past,
and I walked along fields of corn and beans,
gravel roads. I walked along rivers
and streams. I walked across continents,
on top of oceans, through generations,
watching my ancestors die, walking
past them, walking, walking, walking . . .

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