My legs, they burn, seared embers in muscles, mementos of each mile,

each hill, a steely sun that swaggered since my pedal’s first push into

Keweenaw Peninsula’s forests and coasts. Before light strays from day,

I make camp, inhale dinner: a bag of rehydrated brisket, a flask of whiskey,

baskets of stars. The campfire kindles reflections of the world I witness

perched behind handlebars of a bike laden like a pioneer’s mule.

Life slow-rolls on backroads. Trail angels appear with water and directions.

Dogs wag and bark through the fenceline, always up for a chat. Smith & Wesson

protects a property, certified by a sign bared on barbed-wire. Locals gather

at a small town hall, a building, like the people, weathered by Superior winds.

Wherever I ride, towns and cities live side by side with forests, clear-cut

and trucked log by log, reborn as two-by-fours. Parched lakes beg for rain,

their abandoned docks kneeling forty yards from water. Coasts erode,

inconspicuously, until the first summer home tilts.

People ask bikepackers why we abide these long rides—I ask that as well

while pedaling uphill. Perhaps I need to denude my world to its barest bones,

to see clearly the bookends of humanity and nature, to remember we are eclipsed

by a planet that will shake us off like a wet dog does to rain and birth new life

brimming with wonder, like teenagers high for the first time.