when walking alone

when walking alone,
hardened ground keeps
my clogs from vacillating side to side--
cannot hide my being

alone never meant to hurt
those who scorn my speech,
and make pandemonium of my gentle
this mis-understanding hurt more

than even crunching down on snow--
full well knowing that even the wee folk
flee in time to miss the stomping
why do you still feel you know

my intentions, never pure as snow

but in the whole world i never
wished harm on any living thing
you now have a rationale for severing

a friendship based on yoga and human
kindness---it's your not getting me,
where on the hardened ground i stand
and your reluctance to simply ask

why my words fly out seemingly to you
like arrows; we are those two arrows
strategically flying overhead, missing
at the core of individual origins

your demand for an apology
is that poison arrow passing
over my head, a sparrow, scared
i would bare my soul and lay down

upon the frozen ground for those
who get my melodies, who feel outloud
my words, like birds who get lost in trees
and clouds--i reach out to kindred buds--

who would wake up to waxy tulips
and watch them become more elastic
malleable as wet clay in rising temperatures
swings strung to apple trees in late may

it's either now or never, or there's no rigidity
i can not play the checkerboard game
without absolving the very hard ground
i stand upon

~words/photo~kate lamberg (c) '15