Birdland

Riding those long flat Mallee roads gives room for the mind.  Riding alone into the wind, gives scope to grow.  There's no room to drop concentration for a second, but lots of hours to feel.  The constant roar of the wind has an affect on my head that goes beyond the difficulty of the ride.  It's a noise that wears at the edges of the soul.  Erodes the soft points to leave just the hard white bones of memory and experience.

While climbing a big hill brings pure, concentrated burn to cycling, riding into the wind is a whole different world of suffering.  Not sharp and pure like a hill, more like being beaten with a blunt instrument.  The secret is that it can be endured, defied and overcome.  The problem is that unlike a hill there is no top, no exhilarating view, no slight relief.  After a few minutes into the wind, it's hard to believe that I can keep going like this for hours. I can though.  

But nobody heard the boys cry of alarm.

Nobody there 'cept for the birds around the new england farm

And they gathered in all directions, like roses they scattered

And they were like compass grass coming together into the head of a shama bouquet

Slit in his nose and all the others went shooting

And he saw the lights of traffic beckoning like the hands of Blake

Grabbing at his cheeks, taking out his neck,

All his limbs, everything was twisted and he said,

i wont give up, wont give up, dont let me give up,

I wont give up, come here, let me go up fast,

Take me up quick, take me up, up to the belly of a ship

And the ship slides open and I go inside of it where I am not human.

Patti Smith - Birdland

I'm spending the next 5 days re-living my misspent youth seeing Patti at the Melbourne Inetnational Festival of the Yarts.  How quickly she's gone from punk to fringe to kulcha with a capital K.  I must admit, I'm so looking forward to Patti and Philip Glass performing the poetry of Allen Ginsberg.

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