"The Rider"
A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
—Naomi Shihab Nye
The metaphor of speed inducing company!
ReplyDeleteI relate...instead of a slow going loneliness it does always seem easier to speed up. Speed up everything...work, workouts, books, life...
But roller blades are so much cooler. Freedom of an age!
Was Lance Armstrong just the loneliest person on the planet?
ReplyDeleteAthletes running from something. In these characters' places loneliness.
Are the pink pedals never alone, because they come in pairs. One dependent on the other to maintain speed and balance?
I like this poem