“So long as I have yesterday / Go take your damned tomorrow!”
– Dorothy Parker, “Godspeed”
(© “Backyard Walking” photos by H. C. Walker)
sometimes the yard gets overlooked because of the work that needs to get done before walking the short distance around the side to outback where the wooden fence bordering the property makes the square circle enough of a trek to get lost and find my way back to the start of the poem that roams around in the lot on the other side
of the gate facing south where the eastern view lights up the side of the house and warms even the shaded parts of this yard…
I bring my camera outdoors and walk each corner of the yard; west then south; east for a pause to survey the grass and all the holes that have appeared since across the lawn out back, under the tree that’s older than this old brick house and single car garage that is a true throw back to the days of single car families being a luxury…
it is easy to forget that there is a whole space to sit in a chair, read a book, and let sunlight from overhead, even the struggling rays fighting to shine through the clouds ahead that stretch across the city and leave no openings for even the slightest view of warmth to come through…
and the greatest part of making my way out the side and around back past my teenage jeep with the flattened tire and the back porch I now have time to take in and sit a spell to remember the versions of yesterday that were easier… always accessible…
not many yesterdays ago, I had the option of being gone away, being away somewhere else just to bring outside remnants home:
leftovers from meals at restaurants where the table wasn’t even dry before I pulled out a pen to write in the margins of slick menus
half-empty coffee cups of various sizes balanced in the same hand reaching for keys to open one door/close and lock another
invitations out, sometimes multiple, to do everything everywhere except explore the yard beyond taking trash and recycling out back or out to the curb once a week
and the poem roaming around the side yard I don’t go out in – this side yard that I could walk even further from front to back, have more steps to imagine both yards are filled with places to see the sun and feel whatever song of the day comes through me
each walk from corner to corner, rewritten more times than steps west, then south, then north before arriving back at the wooden stairs facing my teenage jeep that wants to move but can’t because uphill dreams are impossible when wheels are flat…
this piece, perhaps, will remember the promise of yesterday that could’ve been today
this piece, perhaps, could reach further than all these corners reached by placing one foot in front of the other
perhaps, this is just the walk needed to see the bright spot in this lesser-traveled space jst beyond my parked automobile that I’ve rewrote the journey ten times before now
a single dandelion, a picture taken reflecting the picture taken
another walk around, another revision of the song’s journey, and hours later
the song of remembering how easy it was to navigate life in miles traveled, daily
can be counted corner-to-corner just outback
and, smiling, singing out loud, and snapping pictures doesn’t make this day or the days before feel shut in
this walk and each step in the square circle in my backyard, bought the world closer…
BEING 40 SOMETHING 