A Tripleshot Poem

[Alan]

This poem, composed by the poet Dvora Levin, was read aloud to the assembled group at Starbucks on Sunday August 28 2016.

A MEZMERISING MURMURATION

Early Sunday morning at the Fairfield Café
Lycra starlings land one by one,
Scatter the silence with their chittering.
Shoes clack against the sidewalk as
they rush to gulp their triple shot caffeine.

Gregarious by nature, more starlings wheel in,
exchange names, recent travelings, mounting up
when the leader calls time, welcomes newcomers,
reiterates the goal of companionship and mutual care,
rules for keeping together their murmuration in flight.

Changing course and speed with their closest neighbour
as all flocks do, ever alert to calls of steady up,
car up, car back, slow for walkers, someone to fall back
to back up the slowest rider, except for Group A,
those suffer-fest flyers who go as fast as they can.

With muscled thighs, shush of wings, off they fly,
Silhouetted against the morning sky; an undulating swarm
ruffling the air, leaving behind a café, so silent,
so empty, it already yearns for next Sunday morning
when the Lycra starlings glide in once again.

Dvora Levin Aug. 2016

[Alan]

This is what a Murmuration of starlings looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY

[Sig Isaac]

What a wonderful experience to have such a beautiful and appreciative tribute delivered to us by a local poet. It more than makes up for all the ignorant epithets that have been hurled at us over the years. Thank you Dvora Levin for an unforgettable moment.

[Rolf]

It was a surreal and beautiful moment: receiving an eloquent benediction from an apparent stranger, just before departure.

I understand Ms. Levin absorbed these particulars of Tripleshot culture and our ride conventions simply by enjoying her Sunday morning coffee nearby.

May we all live with such empathy and perceptivity...

[sailor]

May we all live with such empathy and perceptivity...

Yes please.

[Greg F]

Very cool! <finger snaps>

[mfarnham]

That someone would stand up in a coffee shop and spontaneously read out a poem about others in the coffee shop is--by itself--so cool. Even cooler that it happened to be about Tripleshot.

I wish I'd been there to witness it!

Martin

[Claire]

This is very cool. I didn't realize until a few comments down that it was in fact a fairly spontaneous composition by a non-cyclist non-Tripleshotter, delivered in person over coffee (I actually had my suspicions that it just was Alan hiding behind a pseudonym). How nice!

[Rolf]

Cynic.

[Paul C.]

Alan Cassels, Steve Lund

Its quite a sad day
When you have nothing to say,

There must be some material floating around in your creative brains for a response poem.

[phiri]

The poet delivered the tribute did so with such confidence, and the descriptions were so accurate, that you'd think she'd been on a ride with us! I am grateful the words were captured here. Thanks,

Pierre

[Paula]

This is super cool. How did she capture all of that about the spirit of tripleshot?

I haven't been riding with the group much since the summer, and it captured for me why I did ride relentlessly before and what I am missing out on lately by not riding with the lot of you.

Here is link to something cool I found when I searched her name http://www.salvationarmy.ca/britishcolu ... levin/[url][/url]

[Lister Farrar]

When was the last time someone described cycling with the word 'murmuration'? And when was the last time you heard murmuration in a poem?

Yeah, me neither.

That was so cool. Thanks to all who inspired it too.