By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2017

Three decades of footfalls.
The trail breathes
with each season.

After thousands of runs,
my body holds a map
the trail doesn’t know it drew.

That rise means hawk’s nest.
This mud persists past rain.
Where fungi glow,
the oak is dying.

Sometimes I run
with eyes closed,
trusting what my feet
have memorized.

Each root’s position.
Each stone’s tilt.

Yet knowing every turn
can’t predict what waits.
New wildflowers.
Yesterday’s puddle
still holding sky.

The deer paths cross here
for reasons older than the park.

The glacier left these kettles,
its slow decisions
written in land’s rise and fall.

Above, hawks see it whole.
A single line drawn
by ice, root, deer, and time.

Down here,
only this step,
this breath.