Bruebach –> Brunstatt –> Didenheim;
And back again,
Every day, without fail, rain or shine.
Stick-thin – and a thin stick at that –
No ‘old stick’ though:
Young, but with far too many miles on her clock;
Calves the size of your wrist,
Arms thin as a china doll’s,
Waist of one teetering on the short side of teenage,
Ploughing her lonely furrow
Hard as the miles and Macadam underfoot,
Her flint face dead-set against the god of Distance
That dared deny her:
A rock in a very hard place –
A singular human in her solitary race.
Wager she never felt a following wind:
She’d have turned and faced it down
Rather than have it lighten her load
Or goad her glory.
Not for her the easy victory –
She wore the curse of her indomitability
As a brand seared stark into her soul
Still smouldering on the surface:
A moving volcano spewing and strewing around her
The sulphur and silica of some secret suffering
Like a billowing cloak of nuée ardente
Flaying flesh from bone.
But no longer.
No more.
Snuffed out like a candleflame
By unbridled horsepower
And unyielding steel –
Just a kid at the wheel.
