1/16 Biking by Trees on a Snowy Afternoon

...with apologies to Dr. Frost. The Berberville region is short on woods, but we have lots of naked hillsides, which "Jamila" and I zipped past yesterday. She was running, in preparation for the a half-marathon, but I was biking. I wanted to keep her company on her first attempt to go 15 K's (kilometers) without stopping, but I rank "running" somewhere below "being pelted with icy snowballs" and "dying of hypothermia" as things to do on a winter afternoon. Fortunately, the day was the mildest it's been in weeks, so the only snow we saw was melting off the hillsides around us.

Whose hills these are, I think I know.
His house is in the douar, though.
He will not see me biking here,
To watch his hills blur as I go.

My jogging friend must think it queer,
No MP3 assails my ear.
Past naked hills far from the lake,
The second twilight of New Year. [The Berber new year began yesterday]

She gives her iPod buds a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of rushing stream and melting flake.

These hills are lovely, bare and steep,
But I have promises to keep,
And K's to go before I sleep,
And K's to go before I sleep.