2.13.2014

to make walking possible
...Thoreau's Journal: 13-Feb-1859

Winter comes to make walking possible where there was no walking in summer. Not till winter do we take possession of the whole of our territory. I have three great highways raying out from one center, which is near my door. I may walk down the main river or up either of its two branches. Could any avenues be contrived more convenient? With this river I am not compelled to walk in the tracks of horses.

3 comments:

michael jameson said...

a simple observation!, read into it as you will, yet let us remember we make them daily yet give them very little thought!, the true teachers,the great minds,poets,all take heed to simple observations. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com

michael jameson said...

" no the dates a bit off" i remember when i was younger walking down a frozen creek, with nothing in my way except overhead branches ! and wishing i had a pair of skates !.

G. Tod Slone said...

The following is a poem I wrote and is published in my new compilation of Thoreau/Walden Pond/Concord essays, cartoons, sketches, and poems called Transcendental Trinkets.
G. Tod Slone
http://theamericandissident.org/orgs/walden_pond.html
Thoreau’s Ghost

The brown elm, most tenuous of leaves here
in the winter time,
trembled slightly eastwards in the breeze,
appearing as giant scarecrow conglomerations
of apathy and death.

Still, the pine green was most prevalent round
the horizons of the famous pond.
A balmy 60 degrees blew straight across it
upon me.
Only a small portion of the water by the shore
was frozen over, driftwood bobbed close to me.
A lone boatman rowed a pathway through the
ice sheet until open water.

In the distance, I perceived my friend Jeanne
struggling along the slippery pathway.
Youth vociferated, though only for a moment,
while fishermen here and there remained silent.
The squawk of a lone crow resounded suddenly,
while I stood reading an official warning:

Attention park visitors, in recent months we have
received reports of an individual exposing himself
to park patrons. If you encounter this person
while at Walden pond, please do not confront him…