When I walk
I am half me at that,
less even.
My eyes look straight ahead,
no hindsight.
The past mostly a blank,
apart from imagination.
But when I walk
I feel a memory through my ankles,
not of shape so much
as sense,
like rising mist
from which I step,
not entirely myself –
more the composition of many,
and its simply my turn
to be here.
Perhaps it’s something like
a bloom on the clematis growing wild,
and when I fade, the one who takes my place
drinks from the same vine,
of which we know the taste,
its liquid sap in both our veins.
When I walk
I’m aware I’m half there,
at that.
And it does not matter,
not one drop,
from whence I came,
or where I’m gone.
The vine,
even when it eventually depletes,
has dropped its seeds,
in the bush, deep and green.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
April 2019
Living Tree Poetry 