Larry Smith: "Walking a Field into Evening"

For learned books, I read the grasses.
For reputation, a bird calls my name.
I cross a stone bridge with the pace of dusk.
At the meadow gate, six cows meditate.

For decades I ran my mind up hill and down;
now idleness tells me what is near.
An arrow of wild geese crosses the sky,
my body still, my feet firm on the ground.

We age like trees now, watch our seedlings
take wind or grow around us.
I’m going to mark my books lightly
with a pencil. When someone wants
to take my picture, I’ll walk towards them
and embrace.

                         No more arguments,

just heart sense, or talk about nothing.
Take long walks in the woods at dawn and dusk,
breathe in the damp musty air,
learn to listen before I die.

"Walking a Field into Evening" by Larry Smith, from Lake Winds: Poems (Bottom Dog Press, 2014). © Larry Smith. Presented here by poet submission.

View a poem video in the poet's voice and with his musical accompaniment.

Art credit: "Cows in meadow," photograph by Bill Tam.