An Ode to My Bike

I miss you. You were always there
waiting in the rain for me to
come and unchain you, climb astride
your sturdy frame and whizz off
into the promise of the morning
come shine or rain, it didn’t matter
the elements shared us as we overcame them.
My muscles thanked me every day
as I stretched them with pleasure
before and after, sometimes I
overstretched them but I didn’t mind
all the aching, it became part of our
togetherness. I miss you, how you
never stopped working for me
to get me from shelter to shelter
along dark spooky sojourns or
sublime sunny streets. You
protected me and I wore you
between my legs, my loyal machine
you never failed. Sorry I left you
in the rain and never returned. It was
too late to come and get you, you see I
have never been one for worldly
attachments. But I’m sentimental about
the journeys we shared, you saw
it all with me, groaned and creaked up hills
streaked like a lynx along flat plains,
you were joyous to ride and I
remember you as a friend though you were
a man-made thing, inanimate
still, somehow imbued with a soul.

_{Late Day Shadows, 2020, Nancy Messier}

^{© N. Nazir 2020}