I Walk Quietly and Reflectively
by John Herlihy
I walk quietly and reflectively thru these empty rooms,
All the happy memories swept away by life's brooms.
Trying to resurrect the happiness that once happened,
Trying to remember all the happiness that still beckoned.
Listening to sweet melodies that played in my eardrums,
Marching to the compelling sounds of sounding drums.
I walk quietly and reflectively along these empty roads,
Rolling sagebrush, swirling dust bunnies, hip-hop toads.
Roadways to witness the glory of sunrises and sunsets,
Journeys taken to destinations, arriving with no regrets.
Many a windy curve taking me far from the straight path,
Getting lost along the way, being found on the footpath.
I walk quietly and reflectively along those silent train rails,
The engine puffing, clouds of smoke, evocative of tall tales.
Leading through extended prairies and open pasturelands,
Both the city and countryside give way to their commands.
The timber planks cracked, splintered, and slivered by time,
Thru the nighttime darkness, a ghost train echoes its rhyme.
Other roads, other rails, other horizons, all without a fuss,
All these footpaths and byways to enter quietly as part of us.
They lie there quietly within once we have left them behind,
Those pathways have straightened in recesses of our mind.
Destinations that are destined to serve part of our destiny,
Questions that are pursued in the pursuit of life's mystery.
Corridors of mind with pictures hanging as in an exhibition,
Thoughts continue to come and go without any prohibition.
The bud of our thoughts bloom in a garden full of sunlight,
Breathless in an enclosed room in the darkness of night.
We ride fragile sleighs through the winter of our despair,
We build palaces made of glass that shatter beyond repair.
I walk quietly and reflectively through the ground of my soul,
Through all the hills and valleys in my life on this grassy knoll.
All the wisdom will register as true in this enlightened zone,
All the struggles, all the conflicts, of shadows and light sewn.
The seeds, the spring crocuses, the buds struggling to grow,
All the weeds and the roughage that we ever came to know.
The roads of life reflecting light as in a stained-glass window,
Shimmering – indeed pulsating – all the colors of the rainbow.
One foot then another, as we leave imprints on the ground,
Moving in the direction life takes us without making a sound.
Every breath, every heartbeat, every whisper takes us there,
To a destination that we seek and sometimes find in prayer.
I walk quietly and reflectively there on the horizon’s edge,
We rise up, we fall down, we take every step as a pledge.
There I sit on the horizon, gazing quietly into the beyond,
At the moon, stars, swirling galaxies in this celestial pond.
We may think what we may but never deny all this beauty,
Lying before us, for the taking, such compelling mystery.
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Copyright © John Herlihy
Tuesday 27 January 2026
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Ron
"I walk quietly and reflectively through the ground of my soul,
Through all the hills and valleys in my life on this grassy knoll.
All the wisdom will register as true in this enlightened zone,
All the struggles, all the conflicts, of shadows and light sewn.
The seeds, the spring crocuses, the buds struggling to grow,
All the weeds and the roughage that we ever came to know."
This phrase not only adds to the recall of past walks, but says so much about what it means to take such quiet walks. I'll take this poem along for my next walk through the woods of my back yard forest. Again, thank you for posting.