When I become dismayed by news
and my will is watered down,
I ride the hills in early evening
through the shadows of the fields
beneath a swirl of swallows,
cows lined up behind their barns,
thunderheads conspiring in the south,
salt in my eyes in the heat of the climb,
then over the top and the cooling pull
of the planet and the free flight down,
wild with the wind in my mouth,
mad with the thrill of the lean,
the promise of the hill fulfilled,
inspiration flowing on two wheels.
—with a line by James Dickey
