I belong here.
3 poems about walking.
Friends, I am opening up Writing From the Heart for enrollment again very soon. Class starts in November. Sign up here to find out as soon as registration opens!
And truly, any moment the Kickstarter gods—I mean managers—will approve my campaign for Aveline Book 4 and I will launch it. Did I mean to do these two launches at once? No. Am I doing it? Yes!
I am home, and the dream that was our trip to Italy is held like a jewel in my memory. It was good. That’s what I will say now, though I will write more about it soon. Good like goodness. Good like water on a hot day. Good like remembering that the world is full of many beautiful things.
Now I am at the end of a week of jet lag, which often hits me like anxiety. Thudding heart in the chest. Lack of sleep. Trying to recapture big and good feelings of hope, while fighting with dread. I am so happy to be home with my boys, who did so well on their own. And my nervous system would like to punish me for messing up its circadian rhythm.
So yesterday, I went for a long walk. It is a kind of medicine to me. It was beautiful. We are edging out of our rainy season and it’s more likely that we will have rainbows, that the world will be aglow with light in the evenings, that every blade of grass will be outlined in gold.
This morning I went looking and found some poems I wrote about walking. It wasn’t hard. I’ve written many. Walking is so good for the soul.
i have come to the city, and the rain has met the earth after a long dry spell of heat and smoke now i walk in the wet evening, air like water, under the breathing trees the scent of them crowding all the small, hurting places spores hurtling into air nothing about this is quiet and yet it is silent under the great breathing trees in the wet air all the seeds have been thrown down and are sodden underfoot this feeling is Thailand to me and so is the man with spiraling backstroke arms swimming through the humid night almost a welcome to join him in silent exercise, his beautiful, kind, inviting dance but i keep walking through the night letting the trees do their work.
walking in the evening in Northern Thailand this is the green space, the wild and the cultivated a place that was a dream to me once walking on dirt roads over hills i belong along ridges with paddies falling into folds beneath me i belong through rubber tree orchards past suspicious dogs doubling back when coming to a do not enter sign i belong crossing rivers, walking quickly past the trash heap, along fence lines and past trees weighed down by fruit, under a ripening sky glorious with clouds i belong here i belong on this earth i belong here
you go walking with a friend between teak trees that line a canal like a mirror you go walking and you remember again that you are a spark in a stream and all this worry and fear is too much for just one spark, you remember that art is a generosity practice that the world is full of beauty. the dogs run circles around you these are your friend’s dogs, not yours, but not really hers, either she is house sitting and art is a generosity process and house sitting is living in generosity and feeding dogs is an offering, a generous offering the monks don’t like it when the unruly dogs chase their geese, so they come out with slingshots and the dogs leave the geese and run and you are a spark in a stream and this is your practice and the dogs are weaving through the grass making shapes in the late afternoon light and the world is full of beauty.
🔗 Links For You
Registration for the November-January session of Writing From the Heart opens soon! Seats are limited, as small classes are best. Sign up here to find out as soon as it opens.
✨ New! I’m publishing my first audiobook soon and releasing it chapter by chapter on my new audiobook YouTube channel. You can also find the full audio for God of All Flying Things on the channel! Subscribe to follow along or to support the project. I appreciate it!
📚 My books are here. If you would like to know where to start, try the first book in the World Whisperer Series or the first book in the Aveline Series. Or if you like poetry, you can try Everything Bright, Clear, and Beautiful, a Year of Poetry or God of All Flying Things.
🌟 Check out my book bundles (the best deal) here.
✨My writing mini-course is here— Following the Thread: Thirty Days of Guided Writing. It’s a month-long self-directed course about finding clarity and connection with the things in your life.
