Issue 10
Hike
Marcy Lehtinen
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Old Man
No boundaries. You can hike in the woods, if you want, and never
reach the end. You can be an old man. No matter if you're really a young woman
or a child. You're an old man and you carry a walking stick and shuffle along
with a limp you got in the war. What war? It doesn't matter, only that there was
a war and you fought in it and weren't a coward, damn it, not you, because your
father (he's long dead by now), your father wouldn't suffer cowards or fools.
If you keep walking long enough, you'll reach a dense stand of fir
trees, their fallen needles make a soft bed, and people won't believe you when you say
fir needles are comfortable to sleep on. But you, your old-man self, tell them
it's true. You tell them snakes aren't slimy and bats aren't blind because
you've learned things. You've hiked for miles and have learned things and want
to pass those things on, but the people out there, the people beyond the woods,
may not listen to you, a young old woman boy girl child shaking your imaginary
stick.
~Marcy Lehtinen
Marcy Lehtinen is a 2002 graduate of the master's program in creative writing at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). She is currently employed at EMU as a writing instructor. E-mail.
© 2002 by Marcy Lehtinen. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated December 23, 2002.