Two hours hiked,
one hundred people met
a couple of words exchanged:
polite, gentle, irrelevant.
This one woman breaks the chain
of monotone meditative wander.
Looks down on me,
cries and rends her clothes,
at the sight of my footwear choice:
shame, scandal, disgrace,
rendered with an officious voice.
Abducted from my now longed bower,
private, intimate, contemplation space,
I grin and look for her simper,
a gesture denoting funniness,
adumbrating complicity,
a teasing done in jest.
Amazed, I find out none is to be seen.
Stunned, I suffer her monologue,
unbidden counsel, unwanted tips.
Visibly, her hobbyhorse.
She might be a caring hiking guide,
a sapient soul, connoisseur of nature,
concern about my safety, a loving spirit,
babbling worries into a fret,
an obnoxious communicator.
Or she might lead a life of self-conceit,
mirror to a fictive confidence.
Fulfilling her need for acceptance, praise,
imposing interpolations on others’ lives,
giving herself a false sense of value,
an armor made out of imagined steel,
a moldering flavedo, an embittered brittle skin.