Walking
In my walks I would fain return to my senses.
The walk
Thoreau first gave Walking as a lecture in 1851. He says he needs at least four hours a day “sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”
He offers two origins for the word saunter, à la Sainte Terre (to the Holy Land) or sans terre (without land), and prefers the first.
The line
“no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea”
A river’s meander: bends that swing wide, loops that nearly close, and all of it still finding its way down.