Kate's Connection: Poetry and biking

I've just finished up a wonderful week long poetry class at U Maine Orono. Great people, good poetry, 650 miles of driving but worth it to be concentrating on hearing and writing poems. We had such an interesting range of ages, regions, personalities and styles of writing which made for great discussions each day. Rich Kent was as usual a delightful leader; he set up three poet/teachers guest workshops as well demonstrating the variety of ways writers get writing done in the real world!

Here is my favorite that I wrote for the week.

Summer’s Essence

Wading up

the Carrabassett’s

strong current,

my old Lab follows

from the shoreline

to save her strength.

Sun sparkles water

shaping rocks

and river beds

perpetually.

A geography lesson

in the glacial movement

of stone

seen through a clear

liquid prism.

Ahead a slanting slab

of rock.

I slide down

into a deep channel

and swim upstream

tracing the age-old path

of fish and water.

After all that classroom time I spent the whole weekend outside in Carrabassett Valley. Yay! Both days we did different trails starting from the Outdoor Center. First day was mostly singletrack- some a little too hard as Ron had me try a lighter weight 26 inch wheel bike. Singletrack is a confidence game and the rocks, roots and turns were winning. The next day we did a more open climb soaking up being in the mountains. Sugarloaf and the Bigelows' peaks looked forbidding- catching the clouds and steep. The trails were gorgeous. The bikegroup making and keeping up the trails is doing an amazing job. Check it out.

This is an easy trail - too bad they aren't all like this! Though that would get boring. There are no shots of me crashing and catching myself between tree limbs. Ron was too busy laughing.