2018 3rd-Place Winner (Tied) Jeanie Greensfelder

Walking Meditation

by Jeanie Greensfelder

I leave the world and my worries,

walk the wood-mulch trail that shifts

to sand. Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh

said we’re just one step from the

kingdom of heaven. I say his mantra:

Oui, Oui, Oui, Merci, Merci, Merci.

Yes to going slow, feeling the breeze.

Thanks to eucalyptus trees

where migrant monarchs hang

one from another like beads on a string.

A kingfisher calls and circles her pond. 

At the bridge I inhale rain-fresh air

and note mallards, heads tucked.

A snowy egret lands, fans her wings,

and steps into the pond. Perfect stillness.

Time stretches. My mind quiets.

The egret ignores her ruffled feathers.

Focused, she waits for food to near.

Her pointed beak strikes, catches a fish.

And me?

I got what I came for.

Jeanie Greensfelder feels honored to have won Spirit First third place this year and in 2015. Her work has been published at American Life in Poetry, and Writers’ Almanac; in anthologies: Paris, Etc., Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poems, and Corners of the Mouth; and in journals: Miramar, Thema, Askew, Kaleidoscope, Persimmon Tree, Solo Novo, If&When, and others. She is the author of Biting the Apple, Marriage and Other Leaps of Faith, and I Got What I Came For. Jeanie serves as the San Luis Obispo County Poet Laureate, 2017/2018. A psychologist, she seeks to understand herself and others on this shared journey, filled, as Joseph Campbell wrote, with sorrowful joys and joyful sorrows. She lives on the central coast of California with her husband Andy. More poems can be seen at jeaniegreensfelder.com.