by Joyce Ritchie 

Start with a cornfield,
tall and tasseling,
bisected by a narrow dirt road,
straight, tapering to a distant horizon.
Add a white sun, and
clouds – a high wisp swish
across an azure sky.
Add silence
punctured
by the intermittent tut-tut-scree
of a redwing blackbird.
Add the incessant buzz
of cicadas, the heat
a permeating watercolor haze.
Brush up a kick of dust.
Now add a bicycle – blue,
and on it, a girl –
small, sturdy, sunburned,
legs pedaling furiously – no –
standing on the pedals – flying!
T-shirt billowing, hair lifting
from her forehead in damp curls,
lungs burning with the hot sweet air.
Flick a glint of light
bouncing off the cover of
the book in the handlebar basket.
Just at the edge of distance,
smudge in a cool green pool of shade
beneath a solitary maple,
beckoning.