Walking with My Husband

My husband, Denis, subscribes to a site called "poem-a-day" (www.poets.org), and he just sent me a poem that he found uncannily descriptive of the way we often walk together:   he striding purposefully ahead to accomplish the distance we had set for ourselves, while I am dropping to my knees every few feet to photograph the naughty bits of a flower or waiting for that dragonfly to return to the perch my presence frightened it from.  It's kind of a joke between us, these different styles of walking, and it's probably the major reason we rarely go walking together, at least in nature.  There's quite a sad note to this poem, however, and it makes me want to walk as long and as often as I can with my dear husband.  Even if I do fall "three, fifteen, forty steps behind."

The poem is called "Bogliasco" by Robert Polito, the title referring to a small Italian village where Polito and his wife had visited -- and walked -- together.

Bogliasco
by Robert Polito

I’m always running ahead of my life,

The way when we walk you are always

Three, fifteen, forty steps behind
Taking a picture, or inspecting

A bottlebrush tree, a cornice, the sea
As it breaks white on the striated rock,

As though I can’t dare look, and
I’m always running away from myself

The way when we walk you are always
Asking me to slow down, and what will happen

When one of us dies, and, if it’s me first,
There’s no one’s back in our photos anymore.

*  *  *

Here are a few more photos, with my dear husband's back in each of them.  We do get around.  Just walking at different speeds.


At the Saratoga Battlefield

At the beach in Montauk, Long Island

At Moreau Lake State Park