Pic & Poem of the Week
June 26, 2016
For your pleasure and contemplation, I am posting an original photograph and a corresponding poem each week on Sundays. May these offerings help lead us to a deeper place of rest on the Lord’s Day.
Click on the picture for a larger image.
• • •
Walker, your footsteps
are the road and nothing more;
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea
Antonio Machado
Songs and Poems
Trans. by Willis Barnstone
The Internet Monk Archives 
Thanks for the beautiful photograph and the poem. And for the other verses that have been shared. I love walking, but it’s becoming more difficult each year. I don’t know how to grieve over such a loss.
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No path crosses the
creek, except the one
that walks on water.
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Thanks for the invitation, Charles. I don’t travel much, but if I did I would take you up on it. Enjoy the woods and paths, thou walker.
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This poem could’ve been written about Peter’s walk on the Sea of Galilee, just before he began to sink…
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And wonder “Why is everything so much like Irvine? The crowding, the traffic, the CC&R’s, the lawsuits, the high prices, the lawsuits?I bought this property in Hicksville to get away from the city!”
(Cue Kyle’s Mom’s aria segment in “Mountain Town” from the South Park Movie…)
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Robert, I’m going with the first one, but I had to think about it a lot before deciding. The second one has the boy running and skipping thru the woods, the first one has what the boy might describe as a grown up plodding along, but I might say was a wiser man walking carefully. In that both versions are told from the viewpoint of the older man, I find the first one more appropriate and supportive of the point being made.
This poem resonates with me. I grew up running barefoot thru woods that now contain over a hundred houses of the sort called summer or second homes peopled by mostly out of state folks with enough money to come in and drive up prices and taxes and take over local government and run your business and your life for their occasional weekend or vacation. I’m not happy about this. The old path has certainly changed, and so has this old body, but in many ways that barefoot boy is still alive and, if not well, at least more determined than ever to never concede ultimate control to those worldly controllers. I’m happy to report that, contrary to your Zen masters, I have my own woods now with paths where I can walk barefoot whenever I choose. Maybe not so much running and skipping these days. You’re always welcome.
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Exceptional picture; thanks.
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found this on a site about Machado’s writing:
from “Proverbs and Songs” by Antonio Machado
“Absolute faith. We neither are nor will be.
Our whole life is borrowed
We brought nothing. With nothing we leave.
You say nothing is created?
Don’t worry. With clay
of the earth make a cup
so your brother can drink”
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this !
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The Zen masters would say that there is no road — and no walker or footsteps either.
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The old path through the
woods has changed — and so has the
boy who once walked it.
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The old path through the
woods has changed — but then, so has
the boy who walked it.
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As someone who spends time walking everyday this poem resonates with me.
Thank you for sharing it.
It is so true and lovely!
H
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” ….. Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea ”
This is so beautiful.
It reminds me of The Seal Lullaby:
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