Before dawn I ride through dimly lit streets
Mid-September and the air is cool and damp
Students wait at the bus stop – some talk, some text

The moon, in the last sliver, courts Venus
Together they drift as if hand-in-hand while clouds slip quietly past
Ghostly with gray shadows

Cross-town Parkway to Kings Highway
The sounds of industry growl
The River Valley Trail
Pulls me from the road

Along the Kalamazoo River, the fog creeps across fields
The sun’s first rays warm the sky
On the river, mist swirls as dawn approaches, gold threads twisting upward

Near Galesburg, another commuter joins me
The conversation makes the trip a bit shorter
The rooster crows twice this morning as we ride past

The last stretch along L-Avenue through quiet woods and fields
Glimpse a deer or a coyote, a rabbit, or an owl
As we climb the final hill of our ride
The mist billows incandescent in the sunlight

Cool are the streets before sunrise
I pedal my daily route through downtown Kalamazoo
Past the Art Institute and Civic
And out through Riverfront Park on the Valley Trail

Across the river on M96 I head east toward sunrise
The road is slightly dampened by the dew
And the trees on each side of the highway stand tall
Framing the sun as I make the first curve slightly east-north-east

In symmetry, the sun lies between the trees
Above the road, floating round, brilliant
Just inside the zone of a photographer's eye
The sun, the road, the trees, the mist – all ablaze in orange.

A dangerous time to ride so close to traffic
The lenses of my glasses scatter the light in condensation
I pedal hard to pass through this section
And ride into Galesburg stopping at the lights

Passing through town out Michigan Ave
I cross the Kalamazoo River but stop for a moment in stride
As the cold air nudges swirls of fog to dance on the surface
Lit from behind by the rising sun, golden, quiet, ghostly into the distance

Out onto my last few miles where the road is rough
It climbs out of the river valley up two hundred feet
Into winding country roads away from most traffic
And closer to the farms and woods

The air is now heavy with the dampness of the woods
There is only the breeze I bring with me
I crest a hill after a long climb but I do not coast on the slight reprieve
As there is new and old roadkill serviced by carrion birds in the mist

I am at my destination on another beautiful morning and I think
What wonders have I seen that my peers miss in their race on the highway
What smells of wild garlic, split oak, and musk of raccoon, skunk, and possum, and sweat
What satisfaction I have as I shower off the cold, and insects, and ride from my skin

August 20, 2013
Kalamazoo, MI

You came down from heaven to the branch outside my window
Your feathers were the color of snow
The dice were loaded against us ever seeing each other
But one of us had nowhere else to go

In your eyes were all the colors that the rainbow forgot
Your wingspan was three feet wide or better
With your voice practicing notes from time's own beginning
You took apart the alphabet letter by letter
And here, where it all stops for good
Where the cool waters run
Thought I saw a mouse kicking in your beak
It was only a skeleton

I've been living hand-to-mouth for a year or better
When the mailman comes and he gives me your letter
And I recognize the handwriting even now
But I go ahead and open it anyhow, yeah
No one's been buying from my roadside stand and I
Hold your letter like a cross in my hand
I'm gonna wrap up my troubles
I'm gonna wrap up my troubles
I am gonna wrap up my troubles
In you

I went out into the kitchen
Where the light comes through the four-paneled window
Clean and bright
And it's taken me this long to realize
How much I like the way that you dot your "i"s
I was born in Indiana thirty years ago
I got a mean, cruel hunger down below
And I'm gonna wrap up my troubles
I am gonna wrap up my troubles
I'm gonna wrap up all my troubles
In you