bruce hodder | country hike

Poetry Dispatch No.70 | May 21, 2006

Sunday, bloody Sunday…the day in the week to forget, not face again–if you’re sentenced still to 9-to-5. Quiet Sunday. Living and dying. Freedom and duty. (Where are my fucking shoes? ) Church, family, Sunday dinner, house work, visiting, kicking back…while time runs out. Down-time, no-time-Saturday-nighttime …delicious, delirious …and so suddenly done. Gone. Sunday lifts its Our-Fatherly head, pointing to the minute-hand before Monday’s live burial. Get up, get moving …in place. (Only Sundays in Mexico made any sense: Bullfights in the afternoon . Sombra y sol.. Sundays since—only sombra .) Sunday, bloody Sunday. Find your shoes. Find yourself. Take a solitary hike . Norbert Blei

COUNTRY HIKE by Bruce Hodder

it’s sunday morning, and i’m walking
in happy solitude, along a country road
among overgrown verges, fields high with
oilseed rape, air damp with an impending
early summer storm. i’ve forgotten it is
waendel weekend, when everybody walks
for charity. suddenly there’s a group behind
me power-walking, their footfalls all in
unison sound like one ragged, clopping
horse–which is what i think it is
until they pass and an old man says hello.
i look behind and here come more, singles,
couples, two guys in army uniform, then
eight soldiers singing “blow and suck, suck
and blow, taught her everything she know”
and scoutmasters, and Chinese, and young
women with sinless clean faces strolling
alongside their grandfathers and greeting
everybody as if we still do that nowadays.
and entering the next village i see a tent
approaching with a van of scouts parked
near and ladies in the austere black get-up
of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade waiting
with eager faces to discuss your blisters
with you, or agree that it’s a lovely day
though we might get thunder later. it’s a
carnival. i’ve never seen so many people
out on sunday on the back roads intruding
on my perfect peace. i cross before i hit
the tent and go in the opposite direction
to the others, towards a narrow turn under
a dark canopy of trees.a lady serving juice
calls out “my love! not that way! you have
to follow them”–pointing to a group of walkers
receding round the stone side of a cottage
chatting volubly. i wave as if i don’t speak
english, and carry on along my route.
i’m heading for deeper country, where the only
people i will see are sheep and lambs,
and the occasional unitelligible farmer
waving a twelve bore in my face

Bruce Hodder, Age: 41, Gender: male, Astrological Sign: Sagittarius, Zodiac Year: Dragon, Industry: Arts, Occupation: Poet, Location: Northampton : United Kingdom, Google: Bruce Hodder, Website: http://bluefredpress.blogspot.com/

About Me:
Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own reason!”–that is the motto of enlightenment (Immanuel Kant, 1784).