Hour One of 2021 Marathon

In January 2021 I began the journey
hundreds of miles trekking in pilgrimage
to a virtual Santiago amid the small houses
of my safe community where invisible threats
came into the very air we breathed.

An e-route with guideposts and imagined sunflowers
along with hundreds of miles opened before me
as I walked darkest mornings
when the owl perched in my front yard
harmonized with the train whistle miles away.

The road continued
as I walked tired in the afternoons
following students’ queries and fears and hopes
their zoomed voices echoing odd harmonies
with birds and barks of surrounding houses.

A few evenings I walked a few more steps
as the sun shone upon iced winter roads,
muddy spring parks, and now summer’s opening fields.
Today no harmonies come from increasing traffic,
crowded stores, drowned out animals’ cries, my heart.

One hundred final on this pilgrimage
now open before me, and the ultimate arrival
will take me back to my classrooms, into the chaos,
buildings and streets busier and filled with people
clamoring with unsettled nerves and angst.

My journey has been sad.
Steps upon steps were designed for intentional peace.
Discovering stillness full of painful, tender unknowns,
I’m older and wizened from the pivots and strains.
Miles remain as I finish this journey.