The Fine Art of the Slow Amble

I move slowly on my hike today around Quaker Lake. I watch the whirlwinds raising ice devils on the frozen lake and think about the poetry of Adelaide Crapsey.

Moving slowly has always been difficult for me. I have always had the energy and the enthusiasm of a lab puppy, but the doctor has told me to slow down lately and take care of my heart especially when it’s cold. 

And so I am moving slowly through my hikes lately. I’m less concerned with reaching some grand vista or new rock formation I’ve never seen before, and more focused on simply being where I am and watching the world and my thoughts as they pass before me and through me.

I’m on the frozen banks of Quaker Lake in Allegany State Park, and it’s about 3 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind has kicked up, and I’m mesmerized. I’m drawn back to my 18 year-old mind. 

All through high school, my teachers had us memorize poetry. I kept it up after I left for a little while. I came across the work of Adelaide Crapsey in my first year of college and committed this one to memory. It keeps coming back to me:

Triad

These be 

three silent things: 

The falling snow . . . the hour 

Before the dawn . . . the mouth of one 

Just dead.

I’ve always loved Crapsey’s cinquains, also called the American Haiku. She invented a form that was often purely imagistic. I love how she captures moments and things. 

There might be, I admit, a level of morbidness if you think of this poem in the wrong way, but I prefer not to think of it in that way. I prefer to think of it as just observation.

Anyway, it occurs to me today out here in the cold. The snow has just fallen, and it was silent. I was up in the hour before dawn to watch it, and that was silent too.  I can’t say anything about the mouth of one just dead. I haven’t seen that. 

I can say, however, that there is great beauty in silence. There is great beauty to be found in slowness.