My Bike Poem by John Stone

My Bike

I like my bike
You can go places on a bike
In space and time
And in your heart and mind

There is spirit in a bike
Or rather there is spirit in riding a bike
It's the way it takes you there
By your own effort
It puts wheels on your feet
You give
You don't take away from anything
You fit into the landscape
You belong
You are a friend
Except to those who only take

You can see
Everything about you
You can hear
The busy hum of the tyres on the road
You can feel
The invisible breeze
The world passing by
Your head in the sky
The rain on your face
The halo of spray from the wheels
You know how it feels

A bike transports your mind
To outposts of nature
The car cannot reach
Sitting still
On a country hill
Hearing sounds
That civilization drowns
Sandwiches that travelled badly
But never tasted so good

A bike needs no reasons
It's a friend for all seasons

Autumn leaves fleeing across the road
Brown yellow and orange
Jay-walking
Dodging your wheels

Crisp winter snow
Crunching beneath yielding rubber
Frosty air
Numbing your face
With its icy embrace

Spring showers
Catching you unawares
Primrose in the verge
Blossom
Scattered like confetti
Celebrating an elemental marriage
Heralding the nuptial delights of summer

Lying with your lover
Pumping tyres
Ascending hills and descending into valleys
Touring contours of the most intimate topography
The sweet juicy smell of crushed grass
The heady perfume of love
Mingling
Entwined in the air
Nature's infinite gears
No brakes required
The ride of a lifetime
In the long summer grass
Falling back in laughter
From the inextinguishable fire
Bikes leaning together in coupled embrace

Riding home
Flush-cheeked
Aware only of each other's presence
Knowing the slightest grass-stained touch
Will re-kindle the flame
Minds as one
Bikes knowing they will embrace again
Through the summer night
When panting-pedaling will only cool
With the perspiration honey-dew upon the grass
While
Outside the Moon looks down
And casts a shadow
Of love-locked bikes upon the ground

Sometimes it's good to get a little drunk
And through a clouded mind
See with crystal clarity
The great truths
Which elude us
When the mind is burdened by the unreasonable burdens of reason
And later
When balance takes its determined leave
To weave
In uncoordinated synchrony
As we push our bikes home
Noisily celebrating the victory
Of matter over mind

I like my bike
Together, we ride the rhythms of life

JS 1996