Every day I trod the path
First through the grass
Then pressed earth
I laid the stones
Wore them smooth
With my shoes
A mark of maturity
To never look down
Feeling the path
Solid to toes, ankles, knees
An ant crawls on the rock
Down the side into the earth
Deeper still into an ant’s secret lair
Knowing what ants know
Ground isn’t solid ground
Shifting solid and liquid
Changing unconstant
Freezing and thawing
Flat stones askew in my path
No safe foothold on my safe path
Looking down instead of up
Confronting undulating landscape
The path is gone
Marked only by ruin
Worn into memory
Reflexively felt from head to toe
Yet undone and gone
Back to nature with
No trace of me
Memory undone with the path
Tender Buttons 