I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

I was talking to a friend recently who wrote a book about a long journey, made mostly on foot,

and we agreed. Our devices keep us in touch with loved ones, but they also make it easy for us to not see them in person.

They keep us informed of what's happening in the world.

But they also keep us from the world.

More than ever, I feel drawn toward the analog and away from the digital.

I'm drawn to real experiences unfettered by screens.

My friend and I both want to prioritize experiences that don't require our phones.

What's most heartening, perhaps, is that Gen Z is deliberately choosing to live more of

their lives offline, to get out and do things.

The kids are all right, it seems.

Today's poem makes its many intentional observations

at the pace of a good long walk.

Laurelhurst by David Beispiel

Young of the Hedge, with the sky bluest past the blind eye of the sun, the rocks of clouds banked at the horizon behind the ticking wind in the trees now and then the black-legged

crossing of a shadow then a restless stroke of green on yellow wings along the hedges the arrow-sharp leaves, or along the low, silver fences,

along bark and sawed limbs, and stray crows. Everything a little late May still wet, full hour from last light, then splotches, then ash of stars in the milling, rich, wet, silica sponge of the sky. The moment I can taste the rain gurgling in the air, the gray paste of clouds

through the tree limbs, like a wash or a stain. With the odor of evening traffic, my eyes begin to see, and I'm sitting in the kitchen dark,

at the Formica table, short of breath, my grief as large as a sun's.

Alone in such an hour, my body is a scar aching behind my neck.

Patch of green lawn, newly planted corn, tomatoes, wayside compost deep in the ground.

The day I dug out the garden, I felt like weeping.

...