prose poems from guest contributors: 11 Miriam Hancock

The Long Walk
 
A voyage, an adventure. Life distilled to essence. No fringes and frills or hand-bags and brollies. Your back holds your pack, your hands are free to tangle with wind and leaves, to scratch, or tap out a tune in the air.  The stretch of the stride, the swing of the arms, the beat of the feet tracing the shapes of the land which tells its stories as you tell yours. And your breathing marks time like a tide. The track is a strand of time, marching forward carrying its layers like skirts that swirl in the wind, flash in the light, glitter in rain, then soak it all up. Switch off thoughts, arouse your senses, switch on alertness, and this strip of land – curving winding climbing falling; wriggling slipping or suddenly vanishing – reappears, straightens and stretches out to become your home. Feel me and you’ll know me intimately, it says. Beguiled, be wild with me, fall into me and find your pace and I’ll carry you on and beyond and beyond yourself.


© Miriam Hancock


Miriam says: After careers in psychiatric social work and music, I now write – inspired by anything/everything, especially landscape and the elements.

Three poems, about Jewish-English identity, published by Jewish Renaissance and The Jewish Quarterly; now working on a novel which tries to convey music, landscape and walking through words. This prose-poem is an extract.