they just are

 the outside, and us

what is between us and the world outside us?

when our feet touch the soil of a hike

and our muscles labor to move us up,

we can be swallowed by nature,

where sun and shadow, rain and wind,

make us one with the outside,

what separates us?

our tools can,

we interpose our phone between us and not us,

trusting it for the weather

rather than reading the signs ourselves,

we can trust it to tell us what's cool,

how to act, how to feel,

woods, streams, peaks

don't need anything,

they just are,

may we, too, work hard

to just be ourselves.

by Henry H. Walker

May 23, ‘24