Charlene Langfur

Moving in the Light

It is never as easy as I think. Even with lists and mental notes
and a map or two. Each day is a choice. How to be selective.
To go for the luminous and the quiet. In the kitchen window
the petals of the flower buds are opening up like little fans. All
they take is water and sunshine, ingredients for a whole life.
Even so, a plan is needed for any fresh start with all its parts and
complications, a three mile walk in the dim light near sunrise,
a walk further on than I’m accustomed to travel out far under
the palm trees, walking over the sand and the dirt path across
the back field, with the white tailed rabbits passing me as I go,
the crows in the sycamores talking wildly as I hit patches
of grass grown amok with clover and weeds, a small local world
full of details, making them part of a life. Above me, a remnant
of the moon, a sliver low in the sky. I am walking on, breathing
deep. Starting over, moving with pace and in the moment, when
absolutely everything matters. Sturdy shoes, new ideas. How
the blue sky suddenly breaks open. The snow on the mountains
in the background, whiter than before, more than yesterday. Soon
the sun warms up the nape of my neck. Heat on a cold day in the
Sonoran desert and I’m bending toward the winter and the new.
Each walk a fresh start. Air and sky and light. Past the roadrunners
and the wrens. Walking out and back again. This is the plan.





Charlene Langfur is an organic gardener, a southern Californian, a Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellow and most recently a series of her poems have appeared in Poetry East and an essay in Evening Street Review.