Footpath

 

[Footpath]

 

footpaths are close to home

rumpled by eucalypt roots

and lined with lockdown memories

 

while footpaths in old Ivanhoe

neaten my walking thinking

with their hilly regulations

 

Smith Street Fitzroy is a mash

its drug-induced slogans

a sidestep mosaic of bitumen updates

 

slowly is preferred nowadays

with footpaths, age wearying me

more detail to stop and inspect

 

mazes of schoolboy Caulfield

bluestone wishful thinking lanes

recalled like they were yesterday

 

heartbreak somewhere Cardigan Street

revelations in the High Street

tripping along the Parade

 

the personal commute in my head

is that daily backwards and forwards

years off my life, of my life

 

then again, as if it were so different

the cobblestones and flagstones

where planes take us

 

beautiful one day Paris

just another day London

Rome - eternal footpaths!

 

the world itself walks between

the houses of every outlook

and the road as chance has it

 

a little lifetime learning waking

along these fragments of walk

the global labyrinth

 

jogging the memory bodily

taking me through the motions

of personal discovery

 

why thoughts on footpaths

take their own direction

from the straight and narrow

 

why some are lined and sanded

others inched into place

others full of unfilled holes

 

footpaths where eyes are averted

or depending on the mood

wish to catch a passing glance

 

why when walking and thinking

a minute has new thoughts every

five seconds if I think about it

 

why slow or fast either

is eternity when trying to

get somewhere in too too a hurry

 

why thoughts meander

on point with intense edge

or can pour straight into the sea

 

why nowadays footpaths

stop to smell the roses

or to watch an accident

 

a bicyclist will almost

ruin the renaissance inside

with their illegal rampage

 

not often but often enough

like the blast of spruikers

or cluster-cities of waiting bins

 

why plentiful hatful thinking leads

footpaths into unknown places

while seeming to go straight

 

like whys that persist

why ask what’s over the hilltop

why directions are upsidedown

 

remember how the world

is great trees above heads, houses

with their own special attitudes

 

why the address might have changed

without proper warning

why corners are secret rendezvous

 

share existential dread

meet window reflections

or absently amble from A to B

 

footpaths that seemed helpful

incidentals in childhood, stages

in youth, now are gradual gifts, whys

 

why this could continue continually

rather than stop for a rest

as here closing my eyes, they appear

 

sensationally steep Dunedin

jacaranda daydream Brisbane

stone foot-smoothed Dublin footpaths

 

with their differing associations

mournful Old Warrandyte Road

wistful el dorado of childhood Queenscliff

 

tipsy half-forgotten middle-aged footpaths  

flowering gums of View Street Bendigo

the Bon Accord Track in Spring