There Are Hills, Then There Are Hills

The steepest hill of my childhood

There Are Hills, Then There Are Hills

(an encounter with blackberry bushes)

It was the steepest hill 

Ever I knew.

Named for my great, great

Grandparents,

The Lords,

She was family,

Especially when snow fell in winter.

Not only neighborhood kids,

Adults too sled her.

Such was her reputation

That we had to endure the arrival of

An occasional station wagon

Full of thrill seeking townies

With their shiny, new

Department store sleds.

She refused to don an asphalt coat

That steep she was.

Coats of gravel just pooled at her feet

So steep she was.

One sunny, summer day

Cousin Mel and I stood 

High upon her summit.

His legs straddled my beloved 

Three speed bike

Fully equipped with hand brakes,

Narrow rims,

And leather saddle.

I gripped the bare steel bars

Of an old wreck borrowed.

No brakes? said I.

No brakes! we shouted to seal the deal.

Even in the foolish loose life of youth

I was an all in kind of guy.

Oh we flew!

Flesh and steel as one,

We flew!

In my young life,

Not in a car,

It was the fastest I had ever moved,

……For twenty seconds.

It was pure joy,

……For twenty seconds.

Then her feet of pooled gravel

Seized my front wheel and

Shook it the way my dog Lucy

Killed garter snakes, 

Seizing tails in her mouth 

And whipsawing the creatures with

Shakes of her head so violent

Their heads parted bodies.

Time stopped.

I lay dead.

Is not complete cessation of breath

……Death?

At last time did return,

Kept measure of

My drumming pain.

So as well did breath return,

Shallow, weak and wanting, 

Unable yet to loose a scream.

My sight returned,

First black, then grey,

Then technicolor.

I saw Mel’s face so

White with fright.

Awareness returned,

As did feeling in my

Skewed and skewered limbs,

All atingle and in tangles

In my bier of broken brambles.

Movement returned,

Mel gave me a hand,

Tugging at my body,

Helping me to stand.

It seemed to take forever,

Even working together,

To free that stupid bike.

I lifted up my t-shirt,

Pulled it free 

Of blood and dirt.

Those bare steel bars

With a slash made a gash,

Ripping flesh from my chest 

Clear down to my belly.

We walked.

My front wheel was as strangely twisted as

My fifth grade school teacher

Who liked to push a hand down the back of my pants.

Strolling our steel steeds homeward,

Passing neighbor’s porches,

I was seized by a sense of surreal dread. 

I saw one woman press hands to her head.

One mother jumped 

Clear out of her seat,

Her mouth fell gaping,

Her gossip fell silent

Down at her feet.

My own mother ran into the street,

Seized me roughly by both arms,

Panic poured stinking from her pores

Like the sweat of one gripped 

In the throes of malaria.

Even I was startled by my first look in a mirror.

It was clear I entered those vines headfirst, 

Encountered numerous thorns,

Which tore a multitude of cuts

All about my face and scalp, 

Areas rich in capillaries whose

Only purpose seems to be to bleed,

Then maybe bleed some more.

There had been enough red rivulets

That one could be excused for thinking 

I had somehow survived 

An orgy of bloodletting.

But dang, my belly sure hurt!