A Sunday
afternoon in late May: I’m biking Grant’s
Trail in suburban St. Louis, roughly 17 miles of an asphalt trail that at
one time was a railroad track. Add the mile-and-a-half from my house to the
trailhead, and I have a relatively flat 20-miles roundtrip.
I’ve been biking
this trail since 2005, when it was three miles shorter, and a rather bumpy ride
over old railroad bed gravel. My first ride over the pre-asphalt section led me
to the discovery of the unexpected hole. Fortunately for my dignity, no one was
nearby to witness the aging cyclist hit the hole, fly up from his bicycle seat,
and spend the next few seconds (eternity in the moment) struggling to stay
upright. I managed it. Barely.
But the unpaved
became the paved, the whole was filled in and covered over, and the ride became
less eventful.
Until the day of
the snake. The black snake. The big black snake. The big Missouri
black rat snake. Did I mention it was BIG?
To continue
reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak
Poetry.
Photograph: The eastern end of Grant's Trail in suburban St. Louis.
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