The Breakaway

Dust from ancient cobbles,
thin Alpine air.
Fields of cattle and campers.
A narrow road, clinging to
a mountainside.
These angry peaks, a
silent threat that is met,
answered and raised
by the men in the peloton:
a study in cadence, game faces—
showing pain, or
nothing at all.
Soundtrack: heart and lungs,
played against a
sawblade landscape.

A rider, a hero, still hungry,
sets a brave pace--
but as the road tilts up,
a wiry shadow bursts loose,
into brilliant sunshine,
eyes hidden, a blur of blue,
a simian ballet-man
rockets into the light,
chiseled, lean and angry,
never looking back.

The best of times, the worst of times—
the clock will tell the tale,
have the last word—
deficits measured in seconds,
minutes, and years.

The human sea closes,
quiets, recedes,
leaving the haughty peaks
silent again.
Immortal names, scrawled
on the road, will fade into
history when nothing else remains.