For Karen, who is teaching me so much so soon, even already
– Jenine Baines

There are shells at your feet,
but you don’t look. The point,
so Tai Chi tells us, is to watch
the horizon. You can see more,
Little Engines you and I,
than we think we can;
you can trust yourself
not to step on anything sharp.

So, shoulders relaxed, head un-turtled,
fingers loose, you gaze into the soft blaze
of unripened sky,
at the condominiums on one side
and the clouds, water and creatures
on the other

and you walk.

How far you’ll go today you have not yet decided,
but the trail you follow is exquisite,
infinite,
white and sacred wonderful messy
with seaweed and shells and smells
and sounds and spent ruffled edges of
waves and, oh the footprints!
How in a breathing yours disappear
amongst them – some clear,
some smeared, some scarcely discernible.
Every one, even those that aren’t, are yours.

Just WALK,
MOVE, the almost silence
you will later settle on calling
the Whisper counsels.
GO!
When you get to where
you are supposed to be,
you will know. You will recognize
Home, as perhaps happily did those
who walked the beach this morning
before you.