Eyes Downcast

We go out walking
explorers and navigators
Adventurers
But with the first discovery
a colorful stone - 
a bug on a branch -
We become something else.
Our research takes over
There is no more landscape
no vast, blue sky
no far off mountain
Only this square meter where we stand,
Eyes downcast,
scanning for a treasure.
We take small steps,
carefully placing our feet 
on a spot we have already checked.
Methodical finders
prayerful monks
A vow of silence
not as necessary
as a vow to see everything
a fossil
an arrowhead
the archaeologist in us
will carefully unearth
a slightly exposed bit of white
bone or basalt?
Everyone come look
a funnel spider!
And we are each entomologists
A traveling lab
Mentally documenting our discoveries
Sometimes even with a camera
Geologists, anthropologists
theorizing about 
what happened here?
who lived here?
Did the flood do this?
Animal trackers
wildlife experts,
and survivalists.
Moving slowly
getting the entire hike into a specimen jar
carrying the Great Outdoors home 
in pockets, backpacks and lunchboxes.
A shell, a seed pod, a pellet.
here a bullet casing - proof of human life!
An old indian beer can
a smooth skipping stone.
These expeditions make us
doctors
truth seekers
history keepers
creation lovers.
And we go home with the 
backs of our necks tired and red.
 

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