Away, Come Away

 
The air was thick, weighted and tangible. Reaching, I felt it slide away from my throat time and again. It seemed to be in pursuit and so I kept my pace up; if I slowed, I was convinced, the air would be there - a heart-beat later, taking hold, finding the purchase that speed denied it. If the Monday evening ride was ugly, this evening's ride was a dream, everything moving with fluidity; a by now familiar ticking providing a metronomic cadence to the cyclical pattern of the pedal. 

I had expected the air to be both heavy and hot. Instead, and quite unexpectedly, I found it to be in retreat pushed back over the mountains by an early arriving breeze at my back. The air charging in from behind was noticeably cooler, and carried enough force to keep the uphill pace easy, if not also relaxed. 

"... The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,

And where is there hope or deed as fair?

Caoilte tossing his burning hair,

And Niamh calling away, come away."

(Yeats, The Hosting of the Sidhe)

Following weeks of activity elsewhere nearby, the grader has made it to that portion of the loop that I call, for obvious reasons, The Steps. The scraping of the surface has left the usual drifts of soft dirt, piles of stones, new pot holes where larger boulders have been clawed from their burials. Neither have shrubs beside the road been spared - their branches skinned and broken, drying in the oppressive heat.

the lone oak - one of these days I will scramble across to it