Elementary
Scribbling through the woods,
alone on a crayon line.
Color me content.
Trail run: 5 miles — Westwood Park
Archive for the ‘Haiku’ Category
The art of survival
Posted in Haiku, Running, tagged Haiku, Indiana, Nature, running, Westwood Park on January 23, 2011|
Wingtips and talons
leave messages on fresh snow,
like Asian brush strokes.
Passing over a myriad of footprints left by man and deer and raccoons, I outrun the hikers and move away from the tracks of forest dwellers, until I’m breaking trail through ankle-deep snow. There’s a stillness here, a cleanness, as if the last storm removed everything but trees and lake and sky. I’m at peace.
But it’s not always so.
A mile and a half into the run I discover a picture painted on the most fragile of canvases. On the left are three evenly spaced, slightly arcing lines in the snow, as if gentle fingers had skimmed the ground. They accent a less-subtle image, heavy and broken, with no distinct beginning or end to the characters in that composition.
I see the indigenous artwork, understand the intensity of the dispatch, and move on. Beyond the violence of a moment. Forward to where the snow lies undisturbed.
Run, trails: 4 miles — Westwood Park
Delicate yellow.
Long, flat caterpillars mark
summer’s first harvest.
—
The smell reaches me first. Dry and dusty, like a fragile memory. It turns my head to a field that stretches endlessly, running to a woods to the west, skipping past distant houses to the south. Neatly cut and kicked into windrows evenly spaced, wheat stalks wait to be wound into round bales.
No one used round balers when I worked on a farm as a teenager. We stood on wooden-floored wagons, knees slightly bent to absorb the bouncing as we crossed the field, a traditional baler kicking out rectangular packages we stacked six high with a tie. After a summer already spent baling a couple cuttings of hay, it was a joy to work in much lighter straw.
This field to my right, however, is an absolute monster, something more akin to Kansas than Indiana. I see the windrows, realizing the endless trips and countless wagons required to bale in the old method, and I’m glad to be just passing by on my bike.
Road bike: 18.80 miles — Henry and Rush counties
South at 29, gusting to 41
Posted in Haiku, road bike, tagged bicycle, Cycling, Indiana, road bike on March 5, 2009|
The worst enemy.
Sun Tzu never fought the wind
on a bicycle.
21.42 miles — Henry and Rush counties
Farm fence. Rusted squares
silently carving the wind
like a knife. Snow drifts.
Nature’s handiwork all around me. Drivers passing by at highway speeds may see the drifts in the ditch, but only in a blur. From my bike, I discover sculpted shapes with the clarity of a Frank Hohenberger photograph. White is painted in tones of gray by depth and shadows. All the while, the day’s warming air serves as an eraser to slowly wipe away the artwork of last week’s winter storm.
22.71 miles — Henry and Hancock counties
Purple mulberries,
tar bubbles, ninety degrees.
Finally summer.
23.68 miles — Henry and Rush counties
The usual suspects
Posted in Haiku, tagged bicycle, bike, Cycling, cyclist, road bike on February 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Frigid southwest wind
and jigsaw-puzzle pavement.
Nothing comes easy.
30.5 miles — Henry and Rush counties
Ladies in red
Posted in Haiku, road bike, tagged bicycle, bike, Cycling, cyclist, road bike on February 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Winter’s wildflowers
the color of Rhode Island.
Chickens by the road.
16.56 miles — Henry County
Gored gourds
Posted in Haiku, tagged bicycle, bike, Cycling, cyclist, Indiana, road bike on January 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Last fall Edvard Munch
impaled pumpkins on fence posts.
Now I see them scream.
21.27 miles — Henry County
Bicycle Eyes 
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