On My A.M. Forest Park Walks by María Luisa Arroyo (THOUGHTS ABOUT THE EARTH Series)

On My A.M. Forest Park Walks
by María Luisa Arroyo

maples & oaks reach for a sky bluing
toward sunrise | their roots erupt
through grass & gravel | the few birches
among them glow light | thick-furred squirrels leap,
their sharp nails scratching tree bark rough
under my fingers & palm | flitting blue jays caw
like crows, the crows themselves, silent shadows |
a moving boulder of a tortoise steps resolutely
through tall grasses, ignoring my gasps
as bullfrogs burp & breathe in the pond he left |
on the sloping hill, two deer butt heads
with budding horns, their white tails, not
a sign of surrender | tiny red birds sail & swerve
toward the zoo’s slanting rooftops with peacocks
peering down at me, huffing cold air |
the wolves howl in cages beyond my eyes,
their echoing laments a reminder I record:
I am a guest in nature’s house
& to be human means
that I have the freedom
to keep it, our world,
the world we share,
clean & alive
for all

PAINTING: Walk in the Meadows at Argenteuil by Claude Monet (1873).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Since May 2021, I have been taking brisk A.M. walks in Forest Park in my hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. No two mornings are alike despite my regular route and my intentional non-use of earbuds or music. Nature’s creatures largely ignore me, a guest, as they are living and communicating in their natural world. While writing a draft of this poem, I became fascinated by the trees and nature’s creatures I saw and heard regularly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Educated at Colby (BA), Tufts (MA) & Harvard (ABD) in German, her third language, María Luisa Arroyo is a multilingual Puerto Rican poet who enjoys facilitating poetry workshops based on art, memory, the ghazal, & objects of meaning, all of which serve to interrupt the realities of personal and historical erasure. Arroyo’s poems have been widely published including on One, The Common: A Modern Sense of Place, and Multiplicity: A Nonfiction Literary Magazine. Destierro Means More than Language, her latest chapbook, pays tribute with original poems to 32 women poets who inspire her.

How to Stay Grounded in Times of Flux by Cristina M. R. Norcross (HOW TO Series)

How to Stay Grounded in Times of Flux
by Cristina M. R. Norcross

Do not cling to clouds,
but rather notice the billowing outlines.
Notice the shades of opal-like white
morphing into hues of heather gray
or charcoal, misty smoke.
See the blue behind the sky’s pillows
and know that this promise exists for you, too.

When the snow melts to rivulets
on the sidewalk,
and the earth thaws
to a softening green bed,
be barefoot in the yard,
let roots reach beneath your feet
to the very center of soil.
Let the trees know you are listening.

Walk in the sun as much as you can,
so that your hair is light-soaked
and your cheeks are kissed
by rays of canary yellow.
Just the movement of following
the sun’s progress
connects you to every other living thing
seeking oxygen,
a community of breath.

Green yourself like a leaf,
drinking in droplets of water,
slowing yourself down
to the minute pace of growth.
Your stillness becomes
part of the landscape,
so that even the wind thinks that
you are tied to the earth
by invisible strings,
inextricably connected
by a force greater than human ambition.
You have left that nonsense behind
in favor of branches and birdsong.
When a storm comes,
you are grounded.

PAINTING: Swamp maple (4:30) by Alex Katz (1968).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: During the pandemic, going for walks became part of my daily practice. While our local YMCA was closed, and even after it reopened, going for walks in nature became my preferred form of exercise to feel grounded in mind, body, and spirit. I read about a grounding exercise where you name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste (like what you had for breakfast). I modified this grounding exercise by being very aware of my surroundings on my walks. It made me feel so much more connected to the present moment to notice the varying shapes of the leaves on the side of the road, or the different sounds of the birds, or the vibrant colors of my neighbors’ flowers. In the winter, noticing and taking a photo of the details of snowflakes was not only grounding, but it distracted me from the minus-six temperatures we were having one week. The end result of all of this grounding and bundling up to take daily walks, rain or shine, was that I was able to return to my house feeling refreshed and ready for whatever came next, even if it was just doing a curbside pick-up of groceries. Often, my daily walks inspire and infuse my writing that day. You could say that my grounding walks have become yoga stretches and warm-ups for poetry!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cristina M. R. Norcross lives in Wisconsin and is the author of eight poetry collections. She is the founding editor of Blue Heron Review.  Her latest book is Beauty in the Broken Places (Kelsay Books, 2019). Her forthcoming chapbook, The Sound of a Collective Pulse, will be published by Kelsay Books (Fall 2021). Cristina’s work has been published in Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Poetry Hall, Right Hand Pointing, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others. Her writing also appears in numerous print anthologies. She has helped organize community art and poetry projects, has led workshops, and has also hosted many open mic readings. She is the co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry and Art Day.  Visit her at cristinanorcross.com.

Walking Haiku by Jack Kerouac

WALKING HAIKU
by Jack Kerouac

Walking down road with Allen —
Walking down the road in Autumn.

“Walking Haiku” appears on page 668 in Jack Kerouac Collected Poems, a 700+-page collection of Kerouac’s poetry published by The Library of America in 2012, available at Amazon.com.

GRAPHIC: “Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in Autumn” by Silver Birch Press