missing the highlands
Last May, I couldn’t ride for two weeks while I recovered from a sprained ankle suffered on a morning walk. This year, I’m not riding for several months while I recover from a sprained brain 🙁
The most beautiful days – the ones when the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the air is not too hot or cold – are the worst. The pain of the healing process is far more emotional and psychological than physical.
I can handle the cold, cloudy, rainy days. But when the weather is fine, all I want to do is climb on my bike and hightail it out to the wonderful Ontario Highlands’ roads. Unfortunately, the one thing I want is the one thing I can’t have.
At least not yet.
This poem is about that.
missing the highlands
by susan © 2025
missing the highlands
i miss riding the highlands
whenever I want
donning my gryphon
going out for a jaunt
by this time last year
i’d been riding for weeks
down in the valleys
up and over the peaks
i’d already clocked
more than five thousand k
enjoyed loop after loop
ridden day after day
from almonte to bogie
down and up whelan road
to bancroft and back
even when the wind blowed
the sun was a signal
to get on my gear
now all clear skies do
is bring me to tears
blue sits in wait
while I work on healing
my brain that got borked
and left all of me reeling
so, no riding for me
excepting two up
like sylvia will
with capi, her pup
one thing that’s good
in this depressing dismay –
is those great highland roads
ain’t goin’ away
they’ll be perfectly there
when i’m finally ready
to ride safe once again
strong, free and steady
© 2025 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry and posts widely, but please do not reprint, reblog or copy and paste them in their entirety without my permission. Thank you.
