The City & the Country No.47 – The Last Ride

Farewells are tough, when it’s a loved one you’re saying farewell to. I never thought I’d feel so sad when the day came to surrender my Harley. No replacement is planned; this is it; 50 years of riding and good fortune. But to feel so sad? I wasn’t quite expecting it. Feels like a death. I’m reminded of Ezra Pound’s words about about reaching a time of no longer loving or being lovable: this is the real death, he mused, “the other is little beside it.” But come on! All this for an engine and two wheels? Strange how that comes to be a part of you, of who and what you are, without your being fully aware of this. At the same time, I’m ready, and I’m so grateful for my life both on and off a bike. This morning I shed a tear or two – or was that just the November wind in my eyes? – on the way to Harley Davidson, who’ve bought back the machine they sold me 12 years ago. Shook hands with all my old pals there. “You’ll be back!” But I doubt it.

This evening, a spectacular sky, cheering me up (even the heavens are giving my biking years a fine send-off) and a cloud of biblical bulk, captured by Claire.