I'm Italy Mone, and this is the Slowdown.

Most mornings, if we're both home and not too busy, my husband and I walk the dog around

the neighborhood.

I love it.

We point out the trees, or rather, I point out the trees, and Lucas nods.

My favorite is when he points at a tree that he doesn't like, because who doesn't like

a tree?

Once he said very seriously, I mean, as sickamores go, can't we agree that that's not a very

handsome sickamore?

The dog loves the walk too, the crunch of leaves under our feet, the news of the neighborhood.

It's just a circle, a short loop.

We are literally walking in circles, and somehow I love it.

I love it because it feels like we've done it forever, gone round and round, pointing

at the trees.

In today's poem, we see what it is to walk together in love.

To not know who is following or who is leading, but to feel like the circle might be an

eternal loop that goes beyond time itself.

Now lonely humans by Jennifer Chang, a type of hickory, it grows by water.

So are we fools to drive to the river the day after our most savage storms have finally

stopped?

To see a tree we've never seen before?

To hike in cold mud through a leafless forest, to behold, clearings now cluttered by whatever

...