“once

we were not afraid
to blow away”

-Alexis Pauline Gumbs, from “Walking to Arawak Road”

                My partner and I are walking twice a day, first thing in the morning and near last thing at night, and I’m learning all the different things these walks can be. I think I’ll keep learning for as long as we walk them. Sometimes they’re banter, playful, tidbits of thoughts and jokes and possibilities. Sometimes they’re more logistical, the planning taking over: all that sequence of when we’re getting groceries and who needs to be where when and how many zucchini we still have. (Tonight: three). Sometimes they’re quiet. Tired from the long day, or still waking up from our sleep, we walk along to the sound of the wind and the changing shadows of the clouds. The first few times that happened I wondered if I was doing something wrong in not “carrying” the conversation. I wondered if it would get boring. I’m realizing how fully it doesn’t. The silence is a sky we blow out into. There’s rain here, and clouds. We blow into thoughtlessness. Into rhythms.. Then someone puts a hand on someone’s arm, and we pause. Look. A raccoon beneath that three, looking at us, scenting the wind to ask whether it’s time to keep blowing along or time to slip back inside a warm den.