Amethysts

I haven't been out walking,
though I've meant to;
haven't lugged the wheelbarrow down the street
and filled it from the gravel pile we share,
then dragged it back and shoveled the stones
into the potholes in our drive;
still haven't ventured out and around the corner,
down the road I've never walked
in the three years we've lived here,
the road that borders our yard,
to see if maybe we could create another entrance.

And I feel it in my bones --
this not-walking --
as a stiffness, as a twinge, both a harbinger of age
and an uncomfortable reminder
that poems don't come from sitting in a chair,
but from exploring;
that walking isn't just for exercise,
but for seeing,
for taking in the contradictions
of a world outside myself;
letting them churn through the blender of my mind
til they pour out onto the page,
the hard stones and the nettles,
the rhodies and the rusted trike,
the frog and the crushed cigarette
jumping from the page in a swirl of smoke
into your eyes;
amethysts, adding color to your day.