I Lift My Foot

Photo by Flora Westbrook from Pexels

I stand at the end of my walk
and look back.

The grass gives no sign of my arrival.

I lift my foot.

The grass springs back
and leaves nothing,
no impression that I’ve passed this way.

The fiercest mountain man,
fluent
in scat and blaze and blood
will find no trace of me
though he read the rocks
the creeks
the sandy shores
along the way I’ve come.

Nothing is disturbed,
dislodged,
upturned,
to signal who has been here yet.

No mark, no gouge
to tell of where I ran
or fell
or dragged myself along.

The grass rises back
the wind combs it straight again
so no one will ever know
I’ve come along this way.