Inspirations and Reflections

This poem came to mind on a late night bicycle commute towards the end of October.  I was returning home after an stop to eat and read following a day of packing emergency parachutes for pilots and reserve parachutes for skydivers.  While in the parking lot donning rain gear, reflective items and turning my lights and flashers on I first heard the sound of large wings and then the calls of scores of Canada geese from all across the northern horizon.  I paused for quite a while to listen and search even though it was a foggy, cold night with the temperatures in the upper 30s.

Midnight Migration

Photo by Frank Starmer, CC-BY-NC-SA

Haunting calls out of clouded darkness vie,
Echoed both left and right,
Choruses from the northern sky.

Visible in o'er cast winter's night,
Chevrons forming, shifting, reforming;
Airborne ghosts gliding in and out of sight.

Pinions in counterpoint sigh,
Heard with breath held light.
Haunting calls out of cloudy darkness vie.

The poem started out as five lines of free verse, no meter or rhyme.  That may well have been the better version.  The trouble is that four years of literature in a Catholic, all male, high school back in the seventies would not let me leave it without rhyme and meter.  Blame Mr. Joe Baker at Christian Brothers HS in Memphis.

Pigeon Extraordinaire

Pigeon -- What does the word bring to mind ?

photo by sootyskye from flickr license CC-BY-NC-ND

• The pigeon about to lose his money in your friendly poker game?
• A multi-platform, multi-client messaging application?
• Andy Capp's rooftop hobby?
• A training partner?
• Your next meal?

In this case the pigeon is a prince.  Prince is a racer turned training partner.  Prince first started accompanying Jeff Daniel on his runs and later on his bicycle rides.  See Jeff and Prince's story here.

Paceline Defined

If you have ever seen the Tour de France or another professional bicycle race on TV you may have noticed a group of riders by themselves going faster than those chasing them.  When they are going in either a single file or two adjacent lines the formation is referred to as a paceline. 

Tour de Sinai

In May of 1990 sixteen of us started from El Gorah in the northern region of the Sinai Peninsula and trekked 342 miles through desert to reach our destination south of Sharm-el-Sheikh four and a half days later.