I’ve walked for transportation 60 years,
and seldom counted steps except when bored,
or treading stairs to shift kinetic gears
and reach a railroad platform. I afford
myself a lot of time without an app reward,
odometer, or any figured goal.
But I’ve a phone I carry, where it’s stored
that yesterday gave mileage to my sole.
(Huitain)
Without a doubt this is my exercise.
However old or sore I grow to be,
You’ll notice I am walking, body-wise
In every weather, till adversity
Withholds me, trips me, interrupts my flow.
And I can list the benefits I win,
Like movement, and the way I always know
Kilometers as time when I begin.
Stress management accompanies my tread.
Outside refreshes vision, mood, and mind.
My ambles send ideas into my head,
Uprooting dull and casting gruff behind.
Corralling obligations, task and talk,
However long I live, I hope to walk.
I wasn’t far from home, but to my tongue
the water didn’t taste as clean to me.
I carbonated it the same, gas sprung
from cannister familiarity.
And tap water’s as excellent among
the SF Bay municipality
as EBMUD gives. Perhaps my filter does
provide? At home I get a better buzz.
(Ottava Rima)
Disclosive is my preference, but I try
to filter speech so it won’t seem unkind.
I’m never like my mother, whose reply
is often what looms loudest in her mind.
I’d rather not keep secrets or be sly –
to tell the truth I’ll always be inclined.
I love you, and I’ll keep your secret well,
restricted like you’ve cast on me a spell.
(Ottava Rima)
Two days with kids I love and then I left
as scheduled, and I should feel relief.
But my emotion’s something like bereft,
though I can’t call it any kind of grief.
My heart is whole. I don’t detect a cleft
and I want time alone, but sure my chief
condition now’s a little wistfulness
and longing, for a toddler’s trusting kiss.
(Ottava Rima)
It’s not that I’m still tired when I wake,
and wheel my feet to floor and head to rise.
But often I’m inclined to take a break
from any wonted form of exercise.
I feel a little impulse to rebel
against the claim of bike or yoga pose.
For more than moments I resist. I tell
myself I need a rest, from crown to toes.
It’s not the pot of coffee that debates
my dawn decision, nor computer news
or puzzles solved. There’s something in my head
that gently makes suggestion, intimates
I’ll like to energize and goose my views.
I leave my seat and start to move instead.
A little yoga almost every day
has been an exercise for near two years.
And now I’m old enough to slow the way
its poses ask, the ritual appears
to ease my elder aches and stem the sway,
affording patience, introducing spheres
to me of conscious motion that I like,
and warming my whole body for the bike.
(Ottava Rima)
A recent heat wave everywhere but here
recalls to me how much I love this spot.
Appreciating coastal atmosphere
I relish mild air that’s rarely hot.
Another benefit I near forgot
is how the inside light here changes phase.
My place is bright each morning, but it’s not
oppressive end-of-day, as sunbeams blaze.
(Huitain)
Of late my lower legs are feeling tight.
They look okay but skin is stretched a bit.
Am I retaining water? My delight
is salty food and I don’t plan to quit
(at least not yet). It’s age that I indict –
my snacking may be inappropriate.
I’ll try to cut it down, but I won’t halt
the crunchy stuff I chew that carries salt.
(Ottava Rima)
A fit of fortune has its way with me.
Besieged by pleasant weather I am struck.
Though elsewhere air is sweltering, I see
blue sky and feel a breeze and more than luck.
I choose to live in good topography
beside a natural bay. Price runs amok,
but this is worth the devastating cost –
the air I breathe is light- and health-embossed.
(Ottava Rima)
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