🔊
Passage 24.
Top-Ten Mountain Bike Rides, #7.
Past bouldering teams of two
I give a one-finger squeeze on the right brake.
My left finger shushes
my riding companion
not to distract the climbers
as they call out instructions.
Rhododendron Bridge.
A porcupine grasps the tree
with front claws, hunches
then with back claws, pushes
hunch
push
stretch
grab
straight
up
tilts my Go Pro
to capture its ascent.
Do I value
my video
more than my experience?
I cannot grasp
the thing-in-itself
of this categorized creature
called Erethizon dorsatum.
Does this salt-licking
fisher-evading
original tree hugger
see me-as-I-am?
At the top of the pine
it gnaws
until I ride through,
ignorant of who I am
and what it is.
Is it a what
or a who?
And my who-whatness?
