Late August, Morning Ride
Sol rising, 20 degrees off the
horizon casting long shadows
along the path, barcoding the
barios we’re rolling through
sunward, the bone-dry river
bottom, half submerged in
shadow twitches with life
feral, stealthy, waiting
ring-ding-ding bwaaah ring-
ding-ding bwaah of under-
powered motorbike playing
chicane in morning traffic
homeless sprawl across the
path in underpasses, accidents
waiting to happen, careless
of themselves and anyone else
heading home, three hours gone
barcode becomes morse code as
tree shadows become dots, while
bridge and hedge shadows are dashes
sweat pours from my shoulders
and brow, tires need air and
chain needs waxing… but later
first need water and a nap…
–LE
CynOp 
7 responses to “Late August, Morning Ride”
I clicked on the link to the color image…wow! What a spectacular sky, Liam.
Was your poem inspired by a recent ride? It’s so hot and humid here, about the only decent time to ride is before the sun comes up. At midnight, it’s still too frickin’ hot.
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It was sunset, and the monsoon was just about to dump a couple of inches of rain on us… It lasted about 20 minutes…
Yes, the poem was inspired by last Friday morning’s ride, 25 mls. Rode again yesterday, 20 mls, and will again tomorrow morning… unless it’s raining again…; -)
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Just out of curiosity, how hot has it been where you live? Here, it reached 105 degrees today, with a heat index of 120. It’s almost 10:30 pm, and it’s still 90 degrees outside.
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Interesting question. Today, only got to about 90 between the raindrops. And at 8:30 pm it’s 69 and raining, with 90% humidity. But aside from the aftermath of Hillary, it’s been in the low hundreds to 110 for the last few weeks, with 20% humidity, Lows overnight have been in the low eightys…; -)
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It’s been about the same here for the last few weeks, the highs not quite as high as yours, though—100 to 105. But the humidity has been awful, more like the mid 60s. You are tougher than I to brave the heat, even early in the morning. 🙂
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Not really, I get up at 5:30, and we usually set out between 6 and 6:30 am. It’s generally in the low 80’s then. after 2 to 3hrs, the temp gets into the low to mid-ninties. The hundred plus doesn’t usually hit us before 2 or 3 in the afternoon. And on the mornings I don’t ride, I’m letting fly my arrows. I just picked up a compound bow. Still have the 40lb recurve, but the compound has sights, so my arrow groupings are much tighter now…; -)
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I hope you follow mine and we’ll read each other. Thank you very much 👋
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