My flight departs when I put my left foot on the pedal and coast, down the driveway, onto the street, swinging my right leg over the saddle. If I had wings to beat, they would be my two feet, pedaling down the asphalt runway. This is my morning flyby. My feet push hard against the pedals: pushing away worries, pushing back years, pushing against thoughts of you which I can’t ever seem to escape from. I keep pushing until my thighs protest, my chest heaves. Lightheaded and flushed I soar through the streets of my neighborhood. I admit, I do spread my arms like an eagle, because it feels good; this is the closest I come to actual flight. I pump my legs and ascend higher and farther, as if this is all I have. This time, cutting through space, where I run to you and away from you at the same time.
The retired men, putzing around their yards in my neighborhood know me. They line the streets and cheer as I speed past, just a blur. As they watch me go by, I recognize the look in their eyes, it makes me want to keep going and never stop.
Hot drops of rain fall
on my helmet, I welcome
them, and feel alive.
I wrote this, my first haibun, for Dverse Poets Pub’s first Haibun Monday. Having never explored this form of poetry before, I am not sure that I totally nailed the form, but I enjoyed writing it. As I was on my bicycle this morning, these were my actual thoughts. Thoughts which were followed by a sense of dread that I would not be able to work my ideas into a coherent poem. Then I got home, hopped on the computer, saw the Dverse post and boom! Haibun!
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
Not Enough Poetry 
Hi – I have commented on your poems a few times and you never returned comments. So….I guess this time I will wait to see if you comment. The blogosphere is two-way street.
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Hi Mary, I am wondering if you are not connecting me with my comments because I always comment back on your poems. When I sign in to comment on your blog I have to use notenoughpoetry as my id. I just went to your blog to check, and saw that the last three times I posted a link I commented on each of your poems.
I have appreciated your comments greatly over the years. I am sorry you think I never comment back. I don’t always have time to comment, so I decided a while back not to post a link unless I have the time to comment on all the other poems. Sometimes if I get bogged down with time I can’t get to all of the poems on Mr. Linky, but I always make it a point to at least visit those who have visited me.
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Hi, I am back. Thanks for the respectful and explanatory comment in my blog and here. I greatly appreciate it. My comment came out of the fact that I had remembered you had commented oftentimes…but lately my recollection was that you had not. But I am glad we communicated on this. I am the same way really. If I cannot comment on everyone’s I will at least make sure I always comment back.
I like your haibun very much. I can picture you blasting off with that cycle. Up until a few years ago I did the same. Such a free feeling really. And yes, the pushing and pushing until the thighs protest…good feeling indeed. And rain on the helmet? It is all part of the experience. Enjoyed the photo too!
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Thanks Mary!!
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Oh.. yes!.. fresh air of cycle wings are a joy for me as well..
but oh goodness.. keeping that head down and cycling
those legs the same way over and over.. and there is
chronic issues of repetitive injury from doing it that
way for decades over and over and over.. and
now i always move different and am totally
pain free… hope that never happens
to you but if it does.. perhaps
that will be the cure for you2..;)
Bicycle head down
legsAme moves
aches saMe..;)
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As a bicyclist .. I feel that way.. Every day the same trip back and forth, and certainly the weather is something you either love or fear.. and probably a little bit of both.
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I think you nailed your first attempt at a haibun, but then I’m not an expert. I just know I enjoyed this. A little prose, a little poem. To me, that’s a successful haibun. Peace, Linda
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Good for you to be out and about, biking and enjoying the warmth and rain ~ You look like you are enjoying it a lot (from the picture too) ~
Congrats on your first haibun ~ Thanks for linking up with Haibun Monday and wishing you happy week/end ~
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What a relief it is to feel that rain after you have been working out on the bike.
Lol at the old men lining the streets.
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Hey, no sweat. I have stopped linking in all together.
That way I can just focus on those that engage in the conversation.
It gets a little thin when you spread it out over so many,
especially the silent ones.
See you around, Lupe.
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Hooray for those old men cheering you on! I fell in love with skateboarding as an adult and too old to look cool at it. But it does have that sense of flying. Excellent haibun. I am so glad you joined in on this! Good job!
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I love the spirit of the haibun…pushing back hindrance and moving on…love the haiku….
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Boom…you nailed it! I love the positive energy and joy in your haibun. Yes, maybe a wee bit of melancholy there but mostly a great flow of happiness…just look at your face!
Gayle ~
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You really drew me into the experience here, took me back, in fact, to days in my youth when I loved to coast downhill on my bike, arms spread wide. And I love your ending, adding a whole new dimension to the experience. Great write!
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I enjoyed this blog very much. Nice play on words and subject content. Positively positive!
Happy journeys moving forward.
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Thank you Johnny. Thank you for stopping by 🙂
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Love this…that feeling of pushing until you can’t push anymore and then feeling so alive from it all 🙂
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This was wonderful. I think you did very well with the prompt. I wrote my first haibun this week as well. Here’s to many more! 🙂
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