Walk Poem

Walk Poem

This may seem like a non-entity because this is not a form as such with a rhyme or repetition scheme. The walk poem is a tradition among poets who have been walking, thinking, and writing about walking and thinking for a very long time. There is the monk’s walk, a contemplative exercise in silence. The late poet Mary Oliver walked each morning among the dunes of Provincetown on Cape Cod. Most of us will have heard “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” – a poem about walking and daffodils. The walk poem. It’s a thing. Here are a few examples. Even I have one. It looks like it's going to be a gorgeous spring day here in New England. Take walk, enjoy the daffodils, and write a poem. 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud    William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

A Late Walk    Robert Frost

When I go up through the mowing field,
     The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
     Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
     The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
     Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
     But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
     Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
     By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
     To carry again to you.

I’m Walking     Ellie O’Leary

I’m walking under

the highway overpass,

away from the river.

The ice is out,

the water is flowing

toward the dam as

 

I’m walking in

the opposite direction,

going nowhere alone,

so often my case.

The highway is loud;

I am quiet.

 

There’s no one to talk to,

even if I could hear them.

Early morning is for

the birds and me

and traffic along 295

making good time

 

between Portland and Augusta.

I could be there on time

if I had anywhere to be.

I’m here alone until

a hawk overhead

eyes a mouse in front of me.

 

I’m walking,

seeing the capture

and the kill,

as I try to look away.

not wanting to be

a part of this view.

 

I’m walking,

knowing as bad as it is,

I’m not likely to be plucked

from this life                                                

into another,

even if I wished.

 

 

 


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