Ride, Galloping Girls

I was sitting on a bench yesterday, enjoying some winter sun when I saw them coming.

The Galloping Girls were rounding the bend and coming my way, aiming to ride me down. This is when it's all so beautiful, when we are discovering one another. Why can't it just stay like this, stampeding stick ponies? I don't want any of us to have to learn what happens when we say, "No, you can't play!" We will of course, but for the now that is also forever, we're riding, riding, riding together.

When they got to where the land rises, they leapt their mounts, straining their necks in the effort, dirtying their knees, riding, riding, riding me down. I can't help but want to ride with them, riding my stick pony with their stick ponies. When did we quit riding stick ponies? Maybe we didn't. Maybe we're still riding them, hobby horses on the king's highway, and when we look to the left and right, forward and back, we see our fellow riders, trailing dust clouds behind us, while the direction in which we ride is as clear as a promise.

It's a pell mell, tumble bumble as we rise again to our feet, careening at the speed of sneakers, riding not down, but around. It's when we quit riding that the world comes to an end, when we quit riding with the friends we find along the way: "Come on, let's ride!" Ride my wild Galloping Girls, ride like a wind!

And there they go, the Galloping Girls, around me and off with the sun at their backs, there and gone in a rush, a red flush, long shadows ahead in the sand. I'm not one to wish for amber in which to fix them forever because that's the opposite of what a teacher does, and it's the opposite of what riding a stick pony means when we put it between our legs and call, "Let's ride!" Ride, Galloping Girls, ride!

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