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Footsteps

There are footsteps you have to retrace,
painful ones, the kind that digs a knot
so deep into your heart, you struggle to
breathe and exhale and each motion
as you struggle into lace up boots,
wind a scarf so tight that no one can see,
the slow unravelling of you.

It is with sound of step, you take that first,
moon landing feel on carpets of deep
imbedded leaves, kicking wasted kernels,
tripping through the mossy growth,
hoping for that sign as shoulders slope.
You know its been a while, time slips
and you veer into other directions.

This is where your roots are so entrenched,
over the stream that only once, just once
it froze in a waterfall and all was silence
on a still, cold winters day, your younger self
bright, still flushed with euphoria
cheeks so flushed and a sparkle, that is somehow
not present today; it is just as cold
but ice is nowhere to be seen.

There down the winding path, hewn through rock
you meet the past in an onslaught, of laughters,
belly giggles, in a spotted kerchiefs,
blackberries and sloes and the shade of
a walnut tree, steeped in legend.
The lives of lost soldiers trying to regain
a foothold in enemy country and where they lie
the blood red petals beneath a granite stone
looking out to sea, all lost, found, never regained.

You cut into the fontaine de mit, where healing
gives sight and hearing to those who believe
and the lizards are there, tiny, capricious creatures.
Where you once collected water to bath
believing in miracles and love and dancing.
The long, slow hike, primrose and wild orchid,
you walk, that slow ethereal walk,
laces and scarves unwinding as you
step, slightly shaky on the incline,
growing stronger, then that deep
inevitable decline, you fade from the view.

Poetry by Elle