January 4, 2003
The bike trail meanders
through jugglers and rollerbladers,
musicians and hustlers.
Drainage canals host gulls that laugh,
and flowers bloom among the beach grasses.
Pumping my rented fat tire bike,
I watch my daughter ride ahead.
Taking a deep breath of the
sunshine-and-smiles breeze,
I let my shoulders fall.
Relaxed.
(No. 40 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)
