(From the biking philosophers’ notebook)
Something compels you
Perhaps the way a substance
moves beneath your fingertips
and you can mold it
Perhaps the interplay of laws
as seen in intersecting ripples
Perhaps the strength of structure
and the genius of form
You must engage with it
You have to notice
Or maybe it’s the summer-long progression
of how a seed pod forms and opens out
Maybe the way a person thinks or moves
Maybe the tracks of time, the marks of history
Or the recurring changes through each day
No matter—
When a thing calls you
and you follow it because you must
And you throw yourself into the quest
to really master, really grasp it
And insist on holding on until it changes you,
You bring forth beauty.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 17, 2012