This Road

road, now trail, for hiking at Crescent Bay Lake

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem. Yesterday I took a few pictures of the trail I walk with Guthrie. I walk the path, once a road but now blocked off to vehicle traffic, and Guthrie, runs through and around all the sagebrush in wide circle around me. Sometimes he runs full speed, even through the sagebrush. I love watching him run free, so happy to be able to do real “dog” stuff! It makes me happy to see him happy and free.

I’ll just add a note here that one reason it makes me so happy is because I live in this moment where we are still somewhat free in our country. But if that former guy is elected again, no one will be free because a person would never know when he or she might tick off the guy who would be in charge and has pledged to jail his enemies. Already women in many states are not free as far as healthcare is concerned. I never thought ever that I’d live in a time where women, minorities, immigrants, people with disabilities, gender differences, different religious beliefs, would be considered second class people, beneath the white men in power. I thought we’d become civilized, caring, humans. Created equal. We believed in an idea.

As Richard Stengel tweeted:

Regarding the “poisoning of the blood”—the whole point of America is that we do not have and never have had a common blood. We do not have and never have had a common religion, or a common ethnicity, or a common heritage. What we do have is an uncommon set of ideas, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, and not our blood, is what makes us Americans.
Richard Stengel, @stengel, Tweet

That’s what I thought.

So, I am full of joy for my moment of observing pure joy, the running of a dog through sagebrush, ear flapping, tail wagging joy. I wish that joy for everyone, whoever you are.

May we Americans find that road again. We were never perfect, but we were working on it. Live, and let live.

And so a poem… about a road, nature, and a dog.

Poetry

This Road

Less traveled, this road,
now blocked to wheels,
Feet only follow the tracks
now sprouting in sagebrush
where rabbit, mule deer, coyote
forge their own paths,
which my dog zig zags
and romps upon,
darting over and through
small and tall bushes—
Well traveled, this road,
by the creatures it welcomes.
Sheri Edwards
12.23.23 354.365.23
Poetry/Photography