(Photo by Yoshie Hattori)
Winter cycling is a harsh, attention burning experience. The cold, the road surface, the narrowing of traffic lanes, combine to focus effort. Over the winter of 2009, an unusually harsh one I am told, though we will see what climate change means for East Coast winters, lines came to me most mornings as I rode. When I could remember them after changing and booting up my laptop, I would post them to Facebook. They seem to read differently seen together, so here they are, in line, but still raw.
.
Winter Cycling
.
(January & February 2009)
.
Prelude (an infrathin)
.
snow’s faint
dilution of intent
on salt water
.
Cycling Along the Charles – January – A Sunny Day
.
clear hard blue
on ice shiver
wheel creak
.
Basho in the Winter of 1685
.
umi kurete ... kamo no koe ... honoka ni shiroshi
.
sea darkens ... ducks' voices ... faintly white
.
…
.
too cold to
gasping for breath
the Charles cracks
.
Over the Charles River Dam
.
snow smoothed ice but
by the locks open water and
suck
Hint of a Thaw
.
damp snow
sticking to the tire is
soft
Along the Charles January 14
.
blue cold
fingers dull as ice
glares white
Overcast, Expecting Snow
snow sky dulled
waiting for more
the damp aches
Even Colder
.
white white white
sky fragmenting
impacted blue
At Dusk
.
snow slop
grit in the chain and
salt corrosion
---
flat white
perspective lost in
apparent depth
Along the South Boston Beaches
water sand
high as the waves reach
snow
South on Dartmouth Past a Vacant Lot Covered in Snow
.
winter stills
in a moment's warmth of
sun off snow
Ice Softening, Still January
salt eroding
street brakes tires
the drive train slips
Early Breakfast With Yoshie
plum salt
white rice white
the bowl white
First Hard Climb of 2009
.
brain oxygen burn
lungs spitting pellets
uphill
---
cadenced over
cadence turning the long road
slips away
Early February, Still Icy Along the Charles
salt bitter
nose raw from
leather gloves
Warmer, Threatening Snow
thin ice
cutting the tires
thigh ache, turning
Over Harvard Bridge in the Snow
.
snow fluttering
up off the tires
turning softly
.
Crumbling Ice
.
wanting a hard rain
to wash down salt and ice
wearing the road
.
Sharp Sun, Wind Over Harvard Bridge
.
cold enough
to crack teeth, turning
across the bridge
.
Still Slippery Out There
.
ice dark with
road grit won't
slip, or
.
Along the Charles Mid February
.
harsh light off
river ice - the path clear
except for
.
Mass. Ave, Just North of Harvard Bridge
.
riding a hard line
along the ice caught
between cars and doors
.
The ice edge along the road is actually quite close to my normal line, and I always try to ride a hard line in traffic to claim space and so that cars can see me and know what I am likely to do.
.
February Thaw
.
rain water over
ice melt the river
groans and cracking
.
February 17, More Snow
.
fat snow flakes
flat in my eye
a soft pain
.
---
.
sucking snot salt
snow from my beard
juttering in the ruts
.
Brittle, Cold, Clear
.
salt white streets
the frost glares
sun black
.
---
.
wanting water
as a solvent, lungs
burning clean
.
Cautions
.
across ice
riding as straight a line
as there is
.
---
.
under snow
any kind of lip can
knock you down
.
February’s thaw over
.
cold ruptured and
wind bleared the river
freezing again
.
---
.
the path cold
dry straight cranking
up over 46k
.
Planning the ride home
.
no independent
origination of ice along
the path at night
.
Climbing
.
momentum inertia
the hill’s weight sucks
talking to myself
.
More Snow, Early March
.
snow narrowed
with wind grit
the street contracts
.
---
.
blinded off the river
the path delicate with snow
handling delicate
.
Riding Home
.
cold mind
curb slop freezing
in my gears
.
---
.
breath yellow
teeth odd yellow
gasping cold
.
Slogging along
.
winter times
slow in the cold air
rough streets
.
Pausing
.
water hot
the white cup’s heat
transparent tea
.
Milder, maybe?
.
rain finally
skin softening and salt
drips from the frame
.
Out the 117
.
pedaling farther
pedaling farther again
spring air
.
.
.
Through my 20s, travelling, in Copenhagen and Tokyo, and for the first few years in Vancouver, much of my energy went into writing. It was the way that I could best try to understand the world and the people I live with. Writing was how I tried to integrate the physical, emotional and abstract.
The need to write faded, or was rechanneled, in my late 30s and 40s as I worked with varying degrees of success to build communities and companies. I remember one spring day, probably in 1995 or 1996, sitting at The Naam in Kitsilano, drinking tea and thinking that what I most wanted to do was to connect deeply with the world, extend my imagination as far as possible into the past and future, and share these deep connections. And that this could only be done with other people. In any case language, the material of poetry, is fundamentally dependent on (if sometimes alienated from) other people. I used this thought to rationalize my own alienation from my writing and a long commitment, one that continues, to building organizations.
In the fall of 2006 I moved to Boston to work for a strategy consulting firm in Cambridge and bought a fixed gear bike (I had already been cycling fairly seriously for a few years in Vancouver, inspired by my friend Andrew Wilson). My commutes quickly transformed into longer rides, especially when my wife Yoshie Hattori was away in Vancouver, Japan or Europe, and cycling became my most physical way of being in the world. One evening, after a long ride, I was sitting in the Bistro Petit Robert on Columbus Street not far from my apartment drinking a glass of red wine and reading the novel Snow by Orhan Pamuk I was struck by a phrase on the nature of poetry that did not ring true, and I jotted the following on the inside back cover.
.
lapse of concentration
writing or riding
a bike in
traffic, gas smell
oil sheens on
plate metal verb
tense past missing
the door opening
.
I have been writing at least occasionally ever since.
In November of 2008 I began to read a translation of Basho’s collected haiku and then rereading the originals. This, combined with the intensity of winter cycling on Boston streets, led to the above sequence.
