"Talk About Walking" by Philip Booth

"Walking Man" by Jack Baumgartner

Where am I going? I’m going

out, out for a walk. I don’t

know where except outside.

Outside argument, out beyond

wallpapered walls, outside

wherever it is where nobody

ever imagines. Beyond where

computers circumvent emotion,

where somebody shorted specs

for rivets for airframes on

today’s flights. I’m taking off

on my own two feet. I’m going

to clear my head, to watch

mares’-tails instead of TV,

to listen to trees and silence,

to see if I can still breathe.

I’m going to be alone with

myself, to feel how it feels

to embrace what my feet

tell my head, what wind says

in my good ear. I mean to let

myself be embraced, to let go

feeling so centripetally old.

Do I know where I’m going?

I don’t. How long or far

I have no idea. No map. I

said I was going to take

a walk. When I’ll be back

I’m not going to say.

"Talk about Walking" by Philip Booth from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999 (Viking Press).