To Gillet Pond
          In wildness is the preservation of the world                 
                                             -Thoreau

          Find the trailhead beyond cell reach

How does one push through overwhelm? The news buries me beneath a mountain of anxiety, so I leave my swivel chair spinning when I ditch my computer inside. The trick
is to turn off all notifications and badges on your smartphone. Misnomer. Maybe holdouts without such devices are the smart ones. Silence the dings from the family’s group chat, appointment reminders, and memories of this past year’s losses.

          A warbler breaks into my head
                             with a trill

I agree, Henry David. (I’ve pulled out my pocket notebook while I sit on a fallen log to say this.) Under the canopy, I worry that I am a woman alone in the woods. Fear hurries me
to a place of seclusion, surrounded by fallen limbs and the green understory, the air gravid as an overdue woman whose water is ready to break. At the pond, I am safe in Mother Earth’s arms. Why must I let fear waylay me? Distant traffic sounds carry. Wary.  Always, there’s a reason. But, look: an American copper and a grizzled skipper have landed on the nearby orange butterfly weed. I pull out my camera.

          Nature paintings:
               ascendant trail markers