Exercising

I’m not a poet, but my friend, Carroll Taylor, is. She’s been demonstrating different forms of poetry lately, and I’ve been paying attention.

Every morning, I walk through my forested subdivision because my body needs the exercise. It turns out that my mind needs exercise, too, and these excursions present a perfect opportunity for that. I’ve been playing in my head with Carroll’s examples, and even venturing into a few of my own.

Nature usually inspires me, but one day, while looking at my feet, a basic haiku popped out:

Finger Memory

I watch my fingers
tie my shoelaces with grace.
How do they do that?

. . . and then, stream of consciousness. This emerged in diminishing hexaverse:

Adapting

Daddy taught me to tie
my shoelaces without
looking at my fingers.
“Atta girl, way to go!
You make it look easy.”
My four-year-old self smiled.

I learned to type in
fourth grade on an old
Underwood machine
with a manual
carriage return bar.

Nineteen-ninety,
ninety words per
minute, easy,
on computer.

I typed fast.
Slower now.
Fingers hurt.

Never
give up.

Learn.

#exercise #BodyAndMind #poetry

Photo by Chewool Kim on Unsplash