Running the Shawangunk Ridge Years Ago/ poem by Matthew J. Spireng

There were places on the trails
I slowed for the hills, downshifted
as if a car so I wouldn’t sputter

and stall, and on warmer days the shade
of hemlocks was welcome, the few places
in sun on cooler days in fall

or early winter. I’d surely remember
the spots where runoff gullied the trail,
sometimes places I stutter-stepped

and made short leaps to keep from
turning an ankle or knee. Downhills
always welcome, a sort of free-fall,

when I felt transformed. Just remembering
now, my breaths deepen, my mind clears.
That pattern of pebbles on the sharp uphill curve

hasn’t been disturbed even after all these years.
This time of day, when there is a strong breeze,
the shadows of the oaks dance just the same.

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Matthew J. Spireng’s 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize-winning book Good Work was published in 2020 by Evening Street Press.  A 12-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of two other full-length poetry books, What Focus Is and Out of Body, winner of the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award, and five chapbooks. Website: matthewjspireng.com.