For Hjalti

"Bicycle Spring" by Kevin FitzPatrick, from Down on the Corner*
© Midwest Villages and Voices

Bicycle Spring

Windy, sunny, and Sunday,
the afternoon of your father's promise,
you will learn to ride your bike:

your father breathing hard
pushes, runs at your side,
one hand on the handlebars,
the other firm on the seat,

launching you like a glider
to soar long seconds
before wobbling to crash
in the soft green field

until you know how to ride
suddenly except for the brakes
and your father suddenly
is a speck waving way behind.

as you pedal toward strange sights
in blocks where he
has forbidden you to walk.


*I got this poem from The Writer's Almanac, the proofreading of which is not always quite what might be hoped. Mr. Keillor's peeps listed the poem as coming from the collection "Down on the Cornor" and you can see how many folks also lifted it from them by doing a Google search with the typo. I did the Google search after I noticed the typo which I would have ignored had I not previously noticed other typos in The Writer's Almanac. But then, I answer to a higher authority than they do. David finds all my typos.