Climate Ride 2012, NYC-DC

 

A Poem by Renowned Activist Ted Glick

Future Hope column, May 27, 2012

Climate Ride 2012, NYC-DC

By Ted Glick

This poem was written on the morning after the conclusion of the 310-mile, 5-day Climate Ride that I participated in from May 19-23.

Words fail me
as I think about
how to express
what I feel
one early morning after
the end of Climate Ride 2012

“Not even close” --
This is how I described
my plans to do this action
in my fund-raising emails
beforehand.
“Not even close”
to anything I’ve ever done before.

I’ve taken action for the climate,
including arrests and long fasts.
As a young person
I wrestled, with serious, daily practices,
and, later in life,
played full-court basketball.
I rode my bike as a kid,
and 25 miles a week
for the 13 years
leading up to this spring.

I’ve raised money
for causes
I’ve considered important.

And I’ve drawn close
to others
as we worked together
for a noble objective
over an extended
period of time.

But with Climate Ride
it was “all of the above.”
I’ll never forget:

-the beauty of so much
of the land (the animals, the people),
we passed through

-the “line of 30”
on the last day
forming miraculously
between the water stop
and Silver Spring,
up and down and across,
together,
moving fast,
moving in rhythm,
like a fine-tuned biker team
(and maybe we were)

-the incredible thrill
as I tucked in close
and sped down hill after hill
when it was safe to do so
(relatively)

-the dead beaver
in the middle of the road
on one of the longest,
steepest hills on a day four
full of many  of them
(parts of which I walked—
it was OK!)

-the young women
preparing food in the kitchen,
beautifully singing Christian hymns
from 5:30-6:30 am on Tuesday,
before a long, hard day of riding

-the drinks with biker comrades
at the end of that long day,
sitting outside,
getting to know each other
more and better

-the wonderful massages

-The Blake routine every morning

-Caeli’s energy and passion

-Geraldine in the background

-all the volunteers

-and the final act:

Unloading all the luggage
over to a dry place
out of the yellow rented trucks
via long lines of riders
(“like a sandbag line,” someone said)
riders getting soaked
as the sky
finally opened in earnest
after five days
without hard rain,

As if to say:

You are baptized,
climate riders.
You’ve done well.
You stayed strong.
You stayed the course.

Now –

wash up,
clean up,
rest up,
and keep moving forward.

Our wounded world
and its wounded peoples

need you,
need us.

Ted Glick is National Policy Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Past writings and other information can be found at http://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on twitter at  http://twitter.com/jtglick.