Please join in for the May 2020 Writing From The Inside Out read-around sessions on Friday afternoons (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email.

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  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts in below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

My Thoughts

The word attitude was originally used in the lat 1600’s as a technical term in art to describe the position of figures in painting and was later generalized to mean a posture of the body that implied a mental state.  If you extend the metaphor, a persons's attitude toward life, or response to the stressors of life, could be described by how a person walks: the posture, the pace, the gait, the lean of the body, the symmetry of the steps, etc. To me, Larry Smith’s poem, in a few words, captures a transformation in attitude toward life summed up in the lines "For decades I ran my mind up hill and down; now idleness tells me what is near.” The title beautifully reflects that nearness, Walking A Field Into Evening, eliciting a kind of intimacy because he is not "walking on…" or "walking in…" a field, but simply walking a field.

I am an avid people watcher and have often enjoyed watching people walk while I imagined what it might be like to walk or move in that particular way; and then sometimes write poems out of the experiment. I have a growing collection of poems in a file called “lives,” that have been inspired by this modeling. I included a couple of examples at the bottom of the page.

Walking A Field Into Evening
by Larry Smith

For learned books, I read the grasses.
For reputation, a bird calls my name.
I cross the stone bridge with the pace of dusk.
At the Meadow gate, six cows meditate.

For decades I ran my mind up hill and down;
now idleness tells me what is near.
An arrow of wild geese crosses the sky, 
my body still, my feet firm on the ground.

We age like trees now, watching our seedlings
take wind and grow around us.
I’m going to mark my books lightly
with a pencil. When someone wants
to take my picture, I’ll walk towards them
and embrace.

                       No more arguments,
just heart sense, or talk about nothing.
Take long walks in the woods at dawn and dusk,
breathe in the damp musty air,
learn to listen before I die.

  1. Use the set up from Larry Smith’s poem: For X (object or value), I…(metaphor that fulfills it)
    For healthy nourishment, I...; For safe shelter, I…; For deep friendship, I…; etc. 

  2. contrast an earlier way of being in the world  (for decades I ran my mind up hill and down) with a later one (now idleness tells me what is near) and how that has changed your way of doing things (mark my books lightly; rather than stand for a photo, walk for an embrace)

  3. Write about aging and how you might model aging from nature; or use a metaphoric context to describe or write about aging (how is aging like gardening, or like a jazz band, or like baseball)

  4. What seedlings from your life and work might take wind and grow and in what way?

  5. Riff on the phrase “heart sense:” what might that mean?

  6. What is one thing you would like to learn or master before you die?

  7. Describe a conversation with someone "talking about nothing.” How is that different with an acquaintance versus a friend? What is charming about it? What is alarming about it?

  8. Watch someone walk and describe what attitude or life story might be conveyed in that walk (see examples of my own below)

  9. Write about whatever you inspires from the poem or elsewhere in life.

Two Examples of Walking As Expression of Attitude

Falling Man

I walk behind a man with long arms swinging,
a stocky body with a heavy stride, leaning all
his weight forward, which gives each step
the feel of falling, of lifting off and crashing back,
as if his whole life has been this falling down
in search of solid ground;

as if to counter the push of a force from behind
urging him to get ahead; to get on with a life
his loved ones can be proud of and can finally
prove them all worthy, while he carries the weight
of their hopes and dreams, and the burden
of their dreads and disappointments.

So he must thrust one foot in front of another
just to catch himself and stop the plunge
down into the earth; down into the dark soil
he knows will cradle him and will let him rest
because it can take all his weight without any
need from him. It can, at last, nurture him
for who he is, a longing he knows would be
fulfilled if he could just finally let go and fall
all the way down without letting them all
down with him and crushing those he loves
into the ground.

Note: Previously published in
Divine Whispering

© Nick LeForce, All Rights Reserved

In Every Step

Notice the little things:
how high the foot lifts at each step,
how it lands, whether more on heel or ball,
whether heavy or soft,

and the length of the stride,
whether short or long,
and how it varies
with purpose and distraction,

or how the right matches the left
and whether one leads and one follows,

or how the toes point toward a future,
whether straight, widening, or narrowing,

and the movement,
whether flowing or choppy,

and how it all adds into a presence
finding a foothold on the earth;

how that lift and fall carries a body,
like a ghost floating on air
or a log bobbing in water,

and how that body carries a life,
moving through time and space,
a life shaped by that body;

how those eyes, those ears,
and those hands created a world
to which that walk relates
and in which that person resides,

at times loving and laughing,
at times lacking and longing,
a life embodied in breathe
and blood and beholding moments,

all spirit and energy molding memories
for which there is no precedence
and there is no equal in the universe.

Note: Previously published in:
Bearing Witness