spring, and the park is thronged
with joggers, strollers, dogs.
a juggler on the belvedere
flips five rings into orbit
around his open mouth

i am handed a camera
by a stranger who pleads
excuse me, would you please,
and slots himself into the skyline,
smiling obligingly

the shutter clicks
like a rock kicked while walking.

on a wide path when no one is watching
i close my eyes, walk blind
for as long as i can, concentrating
on the crunch of shoes on gravel,
sunlight warming my eyelids

keeping my eyes closed
proves as impossible
as holding my breath

and when i reopen them
i am not where i thought i was.

on a fading trail filled only with squirrels
i study the legibility of footprints
on exposed stone,
on matted yellow grass,
in innumerable fallen needles,
in mud, in puddles,

and in snow, where the trail ends suddenly
in a threadbare gray blanket, grass stalks
jutting through.

nearby, a pond still frosted with ice
reflects the forest imperfectly,
like a photograph out of focus.

one of my earliest memories
is tripping at the end of our driveway
and not knowing my arm was broken
until a nurse said so.

for weeks, a plaster cast
kept my bones from moving

the doctor cut the plaster with a special saw
and mom put the cast in a shoebox
on the top shelf of my closet.

lifting the lid years later
i found a cracked pale cocoon,
preposterously small
and full of get-well-soons
in washable ink.

standing still, i am mindful
of the forest defrosting,
of involuntary movements:

a crack inches across ice;
i notice my undone shoelace

a crow crosses the sky between two trees,
my eye gives chase

the branch beside me wavers in wind,
like my stomach with breath.

when the wind picks up
i fasten my jacket.
in this pocket of the park
spring breathes coldly,
like a hibernating animal

some mornings when i wake up
it takes a moment to remember where i am.

And then the wind would lull and die away and we like it fell asleep again.
· Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers