Sometimes, Out Walking

Sometimes, out walking, the dog and I,

we hear footsteps behind us, clearly heard,

and my heartbeat quickens, even as her ears

perk up, a low growl loosening her throat,

and she strains against her lead, tight and firm

in my grasp, clenched securely against my own rising fears.

Yet when we turn, curious, there’s nothing there,

or, maybe, only a leaf, brown and brittle,

skitters across the path we’ve walked, falling away;

but it’s too light to be the same steps we imagine,

this heavy crunch we hear against the earth, solid

and slow, echoes, perhaps, of our own feet plodding.

Or perchance, it’s spirits walking about, ghosts of a past

long ago, and restless. And as we give them form

and substance, a shape to fill in our minds,

we hear them walking about, following us here,

out for a stroll themselves to clear their heads, as we do,

wandering these back roads and by-ways, an endless wandering,

this journey we take now into our own imaginations, wild

and heightened, our fears fueled and flourishing

out of the unseen sounds behind us, walking here, the dog and I.