The Paddling Poet

When I was small, my father wanted to teach me how to ride a bike.  He took me to the park.  What stayed with me was the horror of crashing into a chain link fence and falling.  I rode a little with my friends when I was older, but stopped altogether when a toddler wandered in front of me and I nearly killed her.

Such memories do not serve me well.  Seeing bikers whisking down tunnels and hills, I can only hope for such thrills in my next life.  But there is a more gentle kind of paddling that seems easy and non-threatening, that ignores the fashion trend, that brings out the sun and inspirations, that makes me think that perhaps, perhaps at this stage and age I can still hop on a bike and ride…

But I know such easiness comes from years of riding, just as good poems give the sense of effortlessness.  It’s all in the doing.