Walking With Andreas 

Lulu 

We pick along the curved, balding footpath, the loaded concrete sky already spitting 

at us. 

You sit next to me on a bench, hood up, humming a song. 

The wind rushes and shushes at us, and you tell me about resonant frequencies. 

We stand up against the gusts, two blustery umbrellas, and totter toward the trees, 

“Excuse-me”-ing through day-glo-spadex-clad joggers, 

And the wind-parted beard covering the land. 

Crispy sea weed grass gradually turns into boney-white ground, clung to by tree roots 

like elderly, arthritic hands. 

I look down at my own hands and wonder where we’re going. 

You march along, to anything that looks interesting. I lag back, writing. 

“Darling” comes your call from the side of a pond. 

The wind tears around me again, scraps and shreds of leaves chipping past me over 

the chalky dirt, as I bumble after you through the undergrowth. 

A mammoth tree has fallen over, ripping open the sky as it went and I blink in the 

sudden stony light. 

You’re standing atop its roots, grinning, “Do you know, this can stand up again” you 

inform me, leaping down. 

“Watch out for the holly” I caution inanely. “Holly?” you follow my pointing finger. 

You kiss my head and stomp off. 

I lumber after. 

I’m shouldering Ted and Sylvia as we pick across the landscape. 

The ground is raw and stubbly ’round another pond we’ve found- a horrible, bubbly, 

oozing thing, all oily black and violently green. 

I crouch on its puny jetty, the wind scratching my eyes as I peer at my notes. 

You pull me up by my wrist. 

“Dick Turpin had a hideout around here” I tell you lamely, but you don’t know who 

that is. 

My hair is blown to pieces, and your five pound plimsolls have failed you. 

“Can we go down into the forest again?” you want to know. 

But it is time for us to go.