The Pace of Walking

The pace of walking
is much the same,
I've learned,
as the pace of thought.

That's how it seems
to work, anyway, for me.

Having no license
(or, having never
gotten one)
has made me
very familiar
with walking,
the chance to
inhabit my own thoughts
with very few distractions.

People who fill that
kind of time up
listening to their iPods,
I guess I don't relate.

I've spent time like that
listening to CDs, and that
was time well-spent
familiarizing myself
with those CDs, but I've
had too many experiences
coming up with the kinds
of thought that I commit
to these poems to ever
seriously convert that time
to anything but the pace,
the beat of the feet, which
we all subconsciously
build around, and the ability
to judge rhythm in complex ways.

The pace of thought requires
a certain momentum, an
opportunity to break free
of limits, and conventions,
to sidestep traditional wisdom
and find your own way along
the same paths so many others
have traveled before you.

The curse of an original soul
is the ability to find
such means of identification.