It Is What You Do Poem by Kyle Schlicher

It is unbearably hot.

You and the others
are walking
single file
down the road
approaching the village.

Getting ready,
you take a few seconds
to adjust
your equipment
one last time.

The dust
just kinda
hangs
in the air
making the heat
more visible,
more stifling.

It sticks to your
sweat covered
arms and face
much like
a piece of metal
does to a magnet.

The sweat
trickles
down
your backside
feeling like ants
crawling
over your body.

You breathe in
the heat,
it fills your lungs
with 100 degree air
contaminated
with the orange,
reddish dust.

Somehow,
you manage to keep walking.

Great effort is required
to just keep on
putting
one foot
in front of the other.

Time
after
time.

Time
and
time
again.

All the while
the heat
rises
in shimmering,
dangerous
dancing waves.

Still you keep on walking.

No one is asking why.

Because,
they all know the answer.

It is what you do.


(9-22-1972)