Walking

I was walking to work last summer,
the day after the weeklong vacation
in Michigan, and was visited
by the sensation of happiness,
a feeling similar to annunciation.
“I feel good,” was how it felt,
just like the song! My body moved
so easily down the sidewalk,
and I stopped at the creek, as I do,
to gaze at the sparkling water.

Early the morning after his surgery,
my father walked the long halls
of the hospital, a nurse at his side,
as he was still “hooked up,” elated.
“She could hardly keep up with me.”
No one in the operating room
could believe he would be ninety
in a week. Likewise, in the room,
his roommate seventy-three.
“John!” said Fred, the roommate,

when they met again in the pick-up
room, a sort of circle. They bonded
overnight. Morning discharged them
back into their separate lives, neither
walking alone. For now. The angels
of annunciation bring us our duties
and euphorias. Life wears down
our bones, our hearts and lungs,
tendons and joints, the bundles
in our brains. Yet, happily, we walk.

— Babs