Balancing upwards
How is it that the beauty to be felt in the miracle of balance on two wheels
Is forgotten
until the next time when ascending the hill, through the copse, beside fields,
the inching
that could tip into collapse if hard-worked legs and lungs failed, yields small joys of noticing
through slowness?
Tight-budded green spears push through the verge. A carpeting mass of them
spring upwards,
waiting to burst into full-throated trumpeting of the ‘warmer weather coming’
anthem of triumph.
At the summit blackbird’s trill rips into the breathless silence.
How is it that the beauty to be felt in the miracle of balance on two wheels
Is forgotten
until the next spring when the bleating of young lambs in the fields
beyond Bulls Cross,
the returning call of ewes, adds new sounds to the purring gears, the thrum
of spinning wheels?
Turned out across the lane, a stream of white and black fleeces
cross my path
pass through the gate to roadside pasture. Now each ascent I slow, spin it out,
check their progress,
fall in love afresh with the climb through Slad to the souring song of skylarks.
How is it that the beauty to be felt in the miracle of balance on two wheels
Is forgotten
until the next time when descending the other hill through copse, beside fields
I glimpse
the silver streak, light glancing off its liquid form, dancing way over there
beside the forest?
This point of pivot before the headlong rush of gravity’s wind blurs vision
is sweet.
Tears stream at the tainted bliss of vulnerable descent, the swerve and dodge
through town traffic.
