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The Tire

Winds like giant breaths
spoke life into the dead
with a chilling verse.
This was a night
to reanimate
the forgotten.
 
On the dusty path
behind the school
(near the closed baseball field)
I found a lonely old tire.
Worn and forgotten, left
leaning on the gate,
it was a relic of experience
deemed redundant
and past its prime.
 
I looked on it with curiosity,
wondering who had left it there
and why.
It seemed a perfectly natural tire,
if a bit worn.
Upon closer inspection
the tire’s age became apparent,
and its retirement
was the obvious circumstance.
 
I thought it a bit cruel
to leave what must have been
a faithful tire
to the mercy of the weather
and the companionship
of trash.
 
I leaned towards the tire
with an eagle eye
and an eager ear,
attempting to imagine
the many sights and sounds
it must have experienced.
Imagining the one time
the tire had crossed
the golden gate bridge
on an odd delivery job,
or the many times
it had traveled to Mexico,
wanting to buy tacos.
 
Now the tire sits out here,
alone and forgotten.
Worse than forgotten,
actively unwanted
as it
endures the licks
of the barking December night cold.
 
And only the cruel memory
of having once been useful
is what remains for it.
 
I take the tire
with both my hands
and push it alongside me
as I walk my nightly walk.
 
We walk together through many streets,
I with leisurely steps,
it with a wobbly roll.
Tonight,
having to work no longer
under the weight of a two ton machine,
the tire feels free to roll for itself.
 
And so I let it.
 
As my hands darken
with the dust of a thousand roads.
I feel myself in good company
and the tire wobbles alongside me,
not with the winter of seniority,
but with the invigorating
spring of youth.
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