The rain was falling hard as I jogged up the abandoned logging road in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
I arrived at the foot of a steep hill that I call Coyote, because I saw coyote pups frolicking there one morning, and the next day their mother followed me down the road.
Halfway up the hill, I stepped in a mud slide. My right shoe sank 16 inches deep, and when I pulled my foot out, I saw my shoe, neatly encased, far down at the bottom of the hole. Inserting my foot carefully, I pulled for a long time until the shoe popped free.
Working my way up the hill, I thought, “Lord, something not entirely serious is happening here.” I thought I would try to capture it in a poem. Looking around, I noticed that the mud and twigs were making lovely patterns in the trail. I thought:
Quiet cliffs above
Swirl of twigs and mud below
And this old struggling runner in between.
It was liberating to cast my heart beyond the mud and rain, and laugh.
