Peacham, VT
Out and backs
Often stigmatized in the trekking
Or walking worlds
As some say:
Why would anyone want to
Walk the same path twice?
Preference resides
In the big loop,
A path that supposedly
Will not be repeated;
Built on the premise that
More ground covered
Equals more sights seen
And more experiences had.
My recent preference, however
Lies in the opposite,
That out and back.
Geographically,
After the hard turn around
The route remains the same;
But unlike the loop
Where all territory is new,
The out and back affords
An opportunity to look back upon,
With wisdom and a sense of comfort,
The road once
And sometimes strainingly
Tread.
What began topographically
As an uphill
Now goes down,
Or vice versa.
The backs of signs become fronts
Seen from afar
Instead of not at all.
New smells, for a gust of wind
That might have been at your back,
Traveling up
The wind tunnel within this out and back,
Now collides with your face
Filling you with manure or hickory
Or Maple
Or Petrichor from the street
From whence you came,
Now where you return.
The loop,
Rushing to get it done,
Thriving in the discomfort,
The unfamiliarity of it all.
The out and back,
In fact brings you full circle, full looped.
On the way out you live through the discomfort
On the way back you think about such discomfort
You once lived through.
While you are not yet home safely or in the clear
You know,
At least from an objective hazard standpoint:
That root there, that tree there;
You know what is coming.
A hazard on the way up may facilitate
Grace on the way down.
I wonder if this is what retirement is like.
And the dog,
Once a terrifying nuisance
On the way up
Becomes but an old friend
On the way down.
Initially disturbed by my presence in this land,
My scent grows familiar.
And those you run back into
For a second time
They know and are flattered by your interest in
Such a place
In their place.
Not just here to rush through
For the quick, fast time.
