Nathan Kiel and FootHills Publishing will be donating proceeds from the sale of this book to The Finger Lakes Trail Conference.
From the book:
Introduction
I grew up following the white blazes of the Finger Lakes Trail (FLT) and have long felt drawn to attempt a through-hike. After finishing my Bachelors, I felt the FLT would be the perfect way to punctuate my tenure in New York before moving to Wisconsin for graduate school. On May 17th, 2019, I began hiking at the New York-Pennsylvania border in Allegheny State Park with my friend, Luke. On June 26th, after forty-one days, Luke and I finished the FLT at the summit of Slide Mountain in the Catskill Forest Preserve. The 584-mile walk between these dates is held in the lines of these pages.
May 17
With each day I shed weight
Calories consumed
White gas burned
Food from my pack moves
To build these callused feet
Reinforce this sore back
Fuel my mind
To keep me eastward bound.
With each step I shed weight
Tighten my frame
Bring my skin millimeters closer to bone
Replace fallow-formed fat
With iron muscles
Trim the sitting season body
To sculpt one that moves.
With each breath I shed weight
Exhale the breakneck deadline-debt
Lug soles that erode my skull
To breathe in a weightless weight
That won’t be spanned with my arms
Or stuffed into a dry bag
The boundlessness energy
Of the woods.
June 13
I wake to the sound of dawn
Birds chirp and chatter
Alarming me of the days approach
While the trees and I
Hold our breath
And wait for the world
To warm
With the welcome sun.
Nathan Kiel was born in Dayton, Ohio. Growing up, he vacationed in the Finger Lakes and Adirondack regions of New York, hiking sections of the Finger Lakes Trail and climbing the High Peaks each summer. He is a recent graduate of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, with a major in Conservation Biology. He has been writing poetry since high school, but began writing in earnest while an Adirondack Mountain Club Summit Steward and has continued through these Finger Lakes Trail adventures.
The Finger Lakes Trail: In Poetry
is a 28 page hand-stitched chapbook - $10.00
Release Date 2/11
Nathan Kiel and FootHills Publishing will be donating proceeds from the sale of this book to The Finger Lakes Trail Conference.
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