Hiking Poems
By Lenny Everson
rev 1
Copyright Lenny Everson 2011
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Cover design by Lenny Everson
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List of Poems
Thermometer Rising
April
Let Distance Speak
National Mosquito Month
I Have Crossed Landscapes
Lost and Found
The One-Pine Inn
Eden
Rolling the Tent
A Hiker's Christmas Gifts
January and Maps
February Schemes
Never Ordinary
April Trails
Map, Packsack, Dreams And All
There Were a Few Trails
If We Were Free
Thunder Dance
And Galaxies Slide By
Another Leaf, Not Yet At Rest
Trail and I
The Sepiatone Trail
First Snow
Crossing Winter Swamp
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Thermometer Rising
The cookstove is polished to a fairly nice gleam
My boots are more or less tight
The packsack is airing out on the line
The thermometer's rising tonight
Somewhere the snow disappears from the trail
Somewhere the hillsides break free
Somewhere the wind is calling the name
Of someone real close to me
It's not that the house isn't friendly and warm
It's not that the ground isn't cold
But how often does a March wind come singing one's name
How often does springtime unfold
The maps are tucked in a big plastic pouch
The routes, I keep in my heart
Measure tomorrow by the length of my stride
And my life from the moment I start
****
April
And all the hills of April stream
With warming water from winter's dream
And all the hills and gullies run
Away from here, one by one
Angels of change I never knew
Have left me by the wayside, true
But my heart is dancing in the breeze
In April skies, in April trees
And on a hilltop, where grasses sway
And clouds are gambling with the day
I lean my pack against a tree
And let the winds sing songs to me
The skies may fill with April rain
But I return to life again
Happy now, for it seems
I've not forgotten all my dreams
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Let Distance Speak
There are those who are most alive
Where horizon meets the sky
In May the quickening world belongs
To a loaded pack and I
Ghosts and dreams and desperate schemes
Considered, and forgot
Cornered in the afternoons
But never, ever caught
I've done my time at a desk
Pretending to be me
I am in truth upon the hills
Fierce and fine and free
I'm a flash of color on a rising trail
And past some flooded creek
In May my friends may call my name
But I let distance speak
****
National Mosquito Month
To the natural buzz and bite of June
I donate my blood (for free)
And give, on the lower Avon Trail
Some surface parts of me
Ecologically, I rate
Reasonably high
Many fed and very few squished
(Despite a thoughtless try)
Some part of nature's inner peace
My heart takes home, I guess
My soul inspired, my body weight
Just a little less
In honor of National Mosquito Month
I do my noble part
And, autographed with polka dots
I graciously depart
****
I Have Crossed Landscapes
I have crossed landscapes
And am proud of it
Carrying a pack on a July ridge
Pausing on the trail, by a swamp, the frogs
Fearing me, lapsing into silence
I have waited out thunderstorms
And gone on, the flat-rock trails moving
With deerflies
And do not regret it
If, dead, I were to find Paradise
There would be landscapes
For me to cross
Till the world and I
Fell off our edges
****
Lost and Found
It's nothing, of course
The wind in the aspen tops
Some dark cloud whispering "rain"
Some terrible silence of the cicadas
The city man's doubts return again
I shift the pack's weight to my shoulders
The ground, underfoot, moving a bit
The hill, the hill more steep than I had thought
And I, almost afraid of it
Sometimes in August, on a first-time trail
Moving out of remembered ground
Only a glimpse of oak and sky
Separates lost from found
Only a promise in wood and sky
And a light beyond the ridge
Changes a trail from an endless line
And makes, of it, a bridge.
****
The One-Pine Inn
The creek is busy with gravity
And as clear as London gin
I sit beside the fireplace
Down at the One-Pine Inn
The residents murmur quietly
And inspect my tender skin
Approving of the evening meal
Served at the One-Pine Inn
There's dirt beneath my fingernails
And hair on my unshaved chin
But nobody seems to really mind
Here at the One-Pine Inn
The supper is stew, as usual
Served in a sooty tin
But it's hot and filling and what I need
For my stay at the One-Pine Inn
Seven miles I had to haul
My personal luggage in
And after midnight it gets right chill
In September, at the One-Pine Inn
But the Management responds to all complaints
With an awkward lunar grin
And serves an after-dinner round of peace
Again, at the One-Pine Inn
****
Eden
October is the church of God
Built in yellow leaf
It refutes this hiker's autumn doubts
Impels, instead, belief
Each hill's an arched cathedral roof
Craft in granite beams
That give me faith this world is more
Than merely what it seems
The final mile takes me through
Transepts of quiet beech
And choirs of geese bring Eden now
Just within my reach
****
Rolling the Tent
Outside, the wind is dancing with the night
In tawdry tangles, in clothes of black and brown
By dawn the rain will dress itself in white
Winter's dog, November, snoops around
In the basement, the polished cooker now reflects
r />
The hats and ropes and sundry summer gear
The pack's on a peg, the shelf collects
The sorted debris of another year
The dark outside dances with the year
The trees outside tango in the rain
I make sure the basement floor is clear
And, carefully, I roll the tent again
****
A Hiker's Christmas Gifts
What I'd like for Christmas gifts?
I'm not that tough to please
I've always got a lengthy list
So set your mind at ease
Some days where sunshine scatters clouds
Out past known and known
A pathway through some range of hills
Where we can be alone
A campsite by some tiny creek
Firewood plenty and dry
Some sparrows to watch us settle in
Gold in the evening sky
A full moon to... Oh dear!
Why the heavy sigh?
I really need... some warmer gloves
And... of course another tie
****
January and Maps
In January, we at last
Get out the maps from season past
And trace the trails that got away
Every cancelled hiking day
While the snow is soft and deep
While the world appears to sleep
We remember drizzle, weekends lost
Workdays when we mourned the cost
But in these fireplace days we know
That there will be an end to snow
And those same horizons lie
Below the coming summer's sky
And we with tent and pack will find
What we never left behind
****
February Schemes
Ah, but I'm devious, making my plans
With the parallel truth of a map
And this time of year, you cannot suspect
You're walking right into my trap
Now you're making muffins with raisins and bran
The world's in a Pleistocene grip
But I've got a scheme with a backpack and sun
And I'm carefully writing the script
I've discovered a ridgeline that we've never seen
Plotted a green rendezvous
Long shadows panel the February dark
But I'm already in summer with you
****
Never Ordinary
Call it an ordinary day
I disagree
Call it an ordinary wind
Discount what it is to be free
There's a hymn to the March wind
Opaque to the long drift of time
There's a resurrection to the landscape
Hillsides, from late winter grime
It's much too cold to camp
The deep woods still full of snow
But all I want, touching the wind
Is to get out my packsack and go...
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April Trails
For all the Aprils that ever were
I wrote this poem
For all the men who ever hoisted a pack
Beneath a darkening sky, in April
I write this poem
No decorum is necessary
I have chameleoned
All the white, cold winter
Fooling only those
Who don't know me
In the soggy, soggy clearing
In the afternoon rain
I shift the tight April straps
And now it's downhill
Valley, trail, and ridgeline
All the way to autumn
****
Map, Packsack, Dreams And All
I suppose I've been sitting in the office chair
Seeing distances and trails
For about two weeks, now
I suppose I've been staring at the map on the wall
By the desk
Doing the company out of time
And time
I think management should chuck
A few of us into the wild
Each May, for a week or two
Just to find out if it improves our work
And appreciation of company benefits
Just let them know
I'm available
Map, packsack, dreams and all
I'm available
****
There Were a Few Trails
When they ask, "Did he truly live?"
Say I found a ridge
At the edge of the sky
Say I knew what the morning was
The light through the woods
The dew in June heavy on the tent
Say I came to each new path
With anticipation
Almost greed
Someday, when they ask, "Did he truly live?"
Say, "There were a few trails
That made his life a poem."
****
If We Were Free
If we were free
Of time's own dues
We might never tie on
Our hiking shoes
If life were long
And not so frail
There'd be little call
Of winding trail
If we never had
To age or die
There'd be always tomorrow
Or next July
A bit too cold
Or chance of rain
We'd find ourselves
At home again
Walk in joy, and
Do not dwell
On the gentle sound
Of distant bell
Cherish the day
Sun and rain
Tomorrow may not
Come again
****
Thunder Dance
The fire's down to an ember by now
The tent flaps open to encourage a breeze
I'm almost asleep in the hot August night
When a rumble of thunder rolls among trees
Flashlight? Flashlight! My boots and my hat
Lecturing myself once again
Chucking the pack into the tent
Feeling the first drops of rain
"Always assume that it's going to rain"
I've had the rule drilled in
But I'm out here doing my flash-dance again
Lessons dripping off of a glistening skin
Dry myself off, crawl over my stuff
Zip the windows up tight
Pledge to restructure my before-bed rules
And wish the thunder goodnight.
****
And Galaxies Slide By
From space, you'd see the ragged line of dusk
Sweep Pacific islands into dark
And in the midnight blackness, too small to see
My campfire makes a tiny, warming spark
The flame leaps up, blinding me a bit
The trees grown still, the branches silhouette
The canopy of slowly turning stars
And catch the moon within a sliding net
The dawn's over Africa, still hours away
Three bullfrogs in the swamp complain
They pause to let Andromeda clear the hill
And carelessly disturb this velvet world again
This September night, below the speckled dark
Of seas of stars and endless deeps of sky
I poke the fire and listen to the lake
And sparks drift upward, and galaxies slide by
****
Another Leaf, Not Yet At Rest
On favored ground, the aspens grow
Strangling out the weeds below
The exist, or die, as best they can
Without the benefit of plan
Aspen leaves at random blow
Caught by October winds, I know
But I choose my place to spend the night
Log
ic shows which ground is right
I'm climbing the trail past Poplar Lake
Well aware of the route I take
I've counted every gram and can
For I - well - I'm a thorough man
Oh, I think, when I've done my route
If someone were to puzzle it out
This northern nomad would seem, at best
Another leaf, not yet at rest
****
Trail and I
Trail and I
Turn and bend
God powers a world
With no known end
He finds my footprints
Sees me, smiles
As I happen on
His chosen miles
****
The Sepiatone Trail
Warmer today.
Last week it snowed, then
Leafstripping rain
And gusty wind.
Only Saturday and sun
Got us out again
The Ganaraska traverses
A sepiatone landscape
On a leafslippery slope
Colorcoated careful hikers
Walk a whiteblazed trail
In deep central Taupe
Winter's hallway?
Not November.
But a clearing of the scene
A cinema of stillness
Woodland, hillside
Revealed: cold, and lean.
****
First Snow
First snow caught us
Near midpoint of the trail.
A clumping flake tracked my lens
Like some frozen ghostly snail
Snow stuck to trees
We searched for every blaze
The planet disappearing
In a downward streaming haze
All around, the falling snow
Dogged an atmospheric track
Trailmarks on the pressure ridges
A pack-cloud on its back
In the car at last, we warmed
Safer, if less dry
And watched our route disappear beneath
The footprint of the sky
****
Crossing Winter Swamp
The first thing you need to know about walking across Southern Ontario in February is
There will be swamps in your way
Whitecedar deadelm, dirty-rotten neverfrozen, deepsnow claustrophobic...
"Swamps?" you say.
Stride across three cornstubble fields and over an old sunlit fence to the sunwhite pasture
The day a song. Pause earmuffed on the end of a ridge, inhaling panoramas of distant slope
Your next field-and-hill is only a half crowflight mile away
Including the woods. And the shortcut valley between. Shortcut? You hope.
First step into the darkcedars swallows sunlight like a frog takes a fly. Your eyes adjust.
A branch puts snow down your neck; another takes your hat
You push swampheartward, the sky more open, but dead trees blocking every route.
Slide over fallentree, sink into snowbank
Look behind - your footprints waterfill. Hummockleap and junglegym your way
To the greenbottom creek at the swamp center. Then
If you can crosss it, fencebounce or leap, there's nothing but struggle till you break
Through cedars to sunlight, to sunlight again.
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