Town Lake Trail
Town Lake Trail
by ron scott
Some kind of black gull
flying round and round-
“No Time! Gotta Go!”
4 or 5 on the water looking up like
“What’s he doin?”. Flomp chomp
of running shoes on packed dirt
and cwish-koo of fast tires.
Illuminated leaves – yellow, red, green
bespeckled by lake behind.
“We weren’t really dating; I was just seeing him.”
The cool grey-blue is-it-gonna-freeze sky.
“I know!” Canoes. One tall fast
superhero runner in black. Gulls gone,
the still water.
A happy puppy. Two slow walkers
crossing paths.
“hhhUgh!”
Later, a naked black tree
with 6 or 7 red leaves swaying.
There’s something about Town Lake Trail (the poem and the place) that invites you to go outside and explore the nearest park or trail. Maybe it’s man intersecting nature, man intersecting man – there’s a lot to inhale thematically for such a short walk – I mean work. The sparsely described detail along the trail, and the sights and sounds aided by onomatopoeia (hope I spelled it right) are something to appreciate. Scott’s economical yet powerful command of language impressed a memory upon me as a reader and trail walker, a pressed flower in a book. Or in this instance, a virtual flower. Simply well done.
I too like Town Lake Trail. Ran there many times. Never wrote about it particularly. Wrote around it, things that happened there or things I came up with while walking, running there. Nice.