Riding Without You

by Jennifer Call

We ride, convinced,

hands on bars,

eyes on the road,

into the Egory Cave,

of shadows cast by self-made light.

The world turns because either we or our shadows pedal.

We think we know which.

Aristotle whispers, “The more you know,

the more you realize you don’t know.”

To know that we are on the bike.

We tighten our grip

on what certainly feels like the bars.

Not a dream?

Perhaps we live in a dream’s reflection,

mistaking it for a ride right in the world,

never seeing the dust on its glazing.

Socrates murmurs, “The unexamined life

is not worth living.”

How do we not know—

Is it me, or the shadow, that is examined?

We coast on roads through Echo Valley,

where every sound reinforces what I said,

where Every Shadow agrees with my move

until there is no shadow to disagree.

It was Plato who allegorized the prisoner’s cave,

casting shadows to argue that

the superficial reality is the silhouette.

Yet do we examine the source of the light?

We aim for a summit,

filled in sureness we’ve examined this is The Peak,

but Epictetus lends the Stoic smile,

knowing it’s only a local hill.

And one day,

In an angle of window-glass, there it is: truth.

We glimpse the impossible,

our bicycle riding, steady and sure,

without us.