Easy street
Somewhere in those trees is more than a portage trail. The path is the absence of trees.
One foot fall at a time, in an incessant pounding of mine and yours, trod by our favorite foot gear, creates and maintains the portal to which I will pass through. Me and my mind must hike this hall.
The lake surface I just paddled across was welcoming and cooperative in the gliding travel. Now with rocks and roots waiting to trip me, it feels like a challenge in a small way to want to go from the liquid, to solid scene change.
From my wide open watery surface the woods now fence me in. It makes my woodland march a restriction with shrubs and trees, and the earthen surface my sidewalk. My mind is talking. Don't go off the path. You might get lost. Sunlight shafts probe the pathway. The air is suddenly still. It's a tight feeling I try to shun.
Shouldering my pack, the kayak that carried me, moments before, I now bare the burden. Portages get me from one easy, to the next. All was wide open with soft water strokes. I scanned all the openness of a lakeshore seeking everything, spying the dark, a tallest, or the movement of a wild thing. Now each peek demands I concentrate. Focus or fall. See or stub. Branches poke at me, the breeze now held back and not allowed in, was just moments ago so refreshing.
Over my shoulder I check to see a small spot of water. I move slowly away as the lake shrinks from view. All the waves' lappings have gone silent. Leaves high above, flutter, the air is moving up there and it quickens my pace to find the ever expanding shoreline in my future.
Could have been a bird, but I can't look up right now. Watch the forest floor or land on it. A small dried deer track. Mud, sticks, old pine needles, Roots worn smooth, rocks, Lots of rocks to bend my ankles. Rocks, more rocks, birch bark wind ripped to the ground. I'm going past the sameness and my boots make no noise. Keep moving. I keep walking.
