Poet Laura: January Field Notes

“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.”

—Jean-Paul Sartre

A walk in January can be lovely too, if climate and terrain allow for it. My personal and creative motto, thanks to Diogenes, is solvitur ambulando—it is solved by walking. Poems often arise on my morning walk from something I see, hear, remember, or from an interaction with someone along the way. Perhaps the repetitive motion of footsteps shakes something loose. Some morning-walkers look at their phones, others wear headphones as well. I can’t imagine foregoing birdsong and landscape to get a jump on a day that will surely be filled with interruptions and claims for my attention. The outdoor time with the rising sun belongs to me. I am lucky to live in a place where the weather is seldom too foul for walking, but sometimes there is threat in the air.

Field Notes: Peninsula in January

A foretaste of spring on waterfowl wings
*
Heron builds nest in the lone coral tree others in palm after palm.
*
Three days of sun a tsunami warning a bit of rain.
*
The sky returns to mottled gray just one day
*
Then angled light dry and bright.
*
—Donna Hilbert, from Enormous Blue Umbrella Moon Tide Press, 2025

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”

—Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens, the esteemed modernist poet, was known to write on scraps of paper as he walked to his work as an insurance company executive. I struggled to pick a favorite Stevens poem to include here. There are so many that I love and so many separate lines are constant companions, as is the first line of “Of Mere Being.”

Of Mere Being 

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

—Wallace Stevens

On my Sunday Morning Walk, I am Reminded of Wallace Stevens

Palm tree frond and heron wing are one,
or so it seems to me from where I stand.
Palm tree temple, heron priest,
and I, a congregant, alone.

—Donna Hilbert, from Threnody, Moon Tide Press, 2022

There are palm trees on my walk around the bay, and birds aplenty, though their feathers are not fire-fangled. I do love to see them catch the morning sun, or rain or whatever gift the day offers.

Surprise Gift

Someone else’s hurricane
became our wind and rain.

It soaked the thirsty garden,
dumped leaves in heaps

from the roof. This morning,
tired clouds spread like scars

across the wounded sky.
The air is warm and close

but here, a ribbon of cool
glides across my ankles,

redolent of moist dirt,
damp leaves, sage.

I lace my shoes, join

dark streets wet with rain,

seek pleasure in the spoils
of someone else’s hurricane.

—Tamara Madison

Your Turn

If you are able, make a daily walk a part of your writing practice. Leave your headphones at home. Walk deliberately, inhabit your environment. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell?

Post and post photos by Donna Hilbert. Featured image by Garry Knight. Creative Commons license via Flickr. Poems used with permission.

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Donna Hilbert

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Enormous Blue Umbrella, Moon Tide Press, 2025. Work has appeared in journals and broadcasts including Eclectica, Gyroscope, Rattle, Sheila Na Gig, ONE ART, Verse Daily, Vox Populi, Tweetspeak Poetry, The Writer’s Almanac, and anthologies including Boomer Girls, The Widows’ Handbook, The Poetry of Presence I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, Love is For All of Us. She writes and leads workshops from her home base in Long Beach, California. (Author photo credit Nathaniel Gutman.)

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• Poet Laura: January Field Notes - January 7, 2026
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