Bicycling

Thank-you note.  Dylan Martinez.  Colored pencils on yellow construction paper.  October, 2012

I can’t begin to speak to what it meant
To you, or how you saw it come to be.
I’d known your mom and dad a while, and sent
A note: The kids could bike to school with me,
For several weeks this fall. A month before,
We’d had a trial run, one afternoon.
You’d just got off your training wheels, and swore
The ride was way too far. But very soon,
The gravity had thinned – and you were freed
From walking on the earth, for just a while.
The sidewalk moved at such amazing speed –
And tight-gripped wonder gave way to a smile
So broad, I thought you’d whispered to the sky,
To tell the sun, to watch you riding by.

– Nyack, NY.  Sunday Dec 16, 2012

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