Bikes Arise from their Dank Holes

For the Uninitiated, These Are Not Bikes

Tires are sprouting out of the dead land. Faces not seen beyond stationary clad bikes are reappearing, mounted on crusty metal and carbon not cleaned since October of the previous year.

These marvels, unlike those in dank basements attached to or resting upon cruel devices, actually achieve forward momentum. They course along roadways still dusted with salt patina, soon to disappear after the first rains.

Hills, those sloping ascents, remind these dark holed strangers that the world outside their four walls requires accommodation to glacial landforms wrought upon the earth in eons past. The wince of recognition at the smallest rise reawakens apathetic muscles that, for too many weeks, stretched in languor on doughy couches.

The forgotten sun causes the eyes to squint, lachrymose, and as yet unfocused. The skin reddens.

This isn't a Bike, Either. Nor is it a Submerged Woodchuck. Woodchucks Don't Submerge Willingly. So I've Been Told.

But then, this is, after all, the fickle north. This fresh adulation becomes easily frustrated by drops in Fahrenheit, chilly rain, and worst of all, the reappearance of white obdurate crystals, sending these squint eyed strangers back from where they emerged.

This is a Manure Pile. If it's Not, I'm Sure Someone Will Let Me Know. (Good to Know Someone's Paying Attention.)

There are signs of life, however ephemeral. Manure piles strewn in spongy fields, torpid cows basking in the sun, sprouts of green timidity peeping out in damp swales. This new found warmth is showing its potential renewal but will willingly defy our naive hopes for a temperate spring, snapping its frozen jaw, like a corroded trap dispassionately awaiting the unsuspecting limb, alone and miles from home.

I Leave This Unlabeled and Open to Interpretation.

If April is the cruelest month, what then capricious March?