Shelter In Place
Every slightly bright day
I go out and walk the trails
because I’m so impatient
for the flowers to rise up
and it’s Spring.
I also go out to practice breathing deeply
I run a little
and let my chest fill up and down,
my heart speeds up getting stronger as I walk
and I think
maybe this will
increase my lung capacity and
save me from needing a
ventilator.
When I was a kid my mother
had to rush me to the ER sometimes
because I had asthma
until I learned that if I wanted to breath
I had to let life inside me
and back out.
It was my first real act of surrender
and I still have to practice.
So I walk and breath
and watch for flowers.
It’s not uncommon here
to find makeshift shelters
and fire pits,
tarps tied down to driftwood.
In the foothills,
a fortunately lost place
where rusted shadows and old tires have run loose
like the slack and hanging remains
of barbed wire fences.
The water cleared up here a long time ago
after “progress” moved out.
There are many famous local legends
about hermits
and individualists who only went to town
twice a year
on foot
and by choice
which happens still,
but no one talks much about rural homelessness
and poverty
even when we live with it
among the wild leeks and native ginger.
Instead we say
this place must belong to a survivalist
There’s a new home built along the creek
I thought it was just a pile of debris
from the flood at first,
but then I could see
how neatly placed the branches were
against the rusty pieces of sheet metal,
a circle of stones for a hearth
and well swept.
I yelled a “hello,”
no response.
I went on my way
pleased to know that
someone is that resilient
and capable still
of building a shelter in place.