I wrote a lot of poetry during my recent trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee. One of the poems was inspired by meeting bicycle adventurer Joe “Metal Cowboy” Kurmaskie, and reading his first book, Metal Cowboy: Ten Years Further Down the Road Less Pedaled
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With Joe Kurmaskie in Chattanooga, TN. Photo by Lois Chaplin.
Idaho
for Joe Kurmaskie
on this rainy Idaho morning
I give you a name
I tap your destiny
with my white cane
have you reckoned
a thousand miles much?
have you packed a bag
and left all else behind?
with the legs as the only engine
you can hear what is there to hear
the whispering of spirits on the roadside
singing the world into being