Saturday, November 20, 2010

gusts


riding a bike
in an unforgiving wind
is so like life

it pushes with fingers
sometimes with hands
that are apparently joined
to a limitless body
that flows
around me
like thin cold water

a rip tide of air
pushes me
and my bike
across the pale-grey
ribbon of tarmac
i call "mine"

of course
like life
it's no more mine
than anyone else's

hanging on an edge of rubber
and wish-driven need
i'm compelled
to lean into it
until it gives
and then just as suddenly
i am compelled
to lean back
so i don't fall over

no sense in sense because it makes no sense
this wind
crushed into life between clouds levelled by temperate zones
and then flowing like silvered magma
across the surface of this world
disregards the forms
of buildings
trees
signs
lampposts
and of course
a man
on a bicycle
pushing sideways through
it's roaring mouth

the learning of course
is to work with the wind
to chart a different course home

~

i listen
to the wind's gusts

so like life

2 comments:

  1. I somehow feel that have been waiting for this post for some time now and now can only say thank you. The wind is a constant of my bike rides, and in the winter, it tends to be a blustery, gusty, meanhearted wind. Yet I try to ride on, through it, with it, in spite of it. Alternately cursing it when it blows against me and forgetting to be grateful or even acknowledge its presence when I have it at my back.

    The great Spanish writer Antonio Machado, writing under the heteronym Juan de Mairena, once observed that a bird cursing the resistance of the air, is really cursing the very thing that makes flight possible. So too, perhaps, the wind and life.

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  2. well lorenzo!! thankyou for the beautiful extension on the piece here . . . . an entire world of poets - the spanish writers - is opening up through you. i am sure that many people like myself are so deeply grateful for the names and the words. i for my part will continue to express the openings that take place through the simple act of riding. a metaphor with rich depths i'm barely plumbing!!! steven

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