by David Chorlton
This is the day starlings mass
along the wires that sag
from pole to pole along Third Avenue
like pilgrims facing east
to stare back toward the land
from which they came
as they gather their voices in a chorus
that turns the chill to sound.
Every year on this day in late January
at eleven o’clock in the morning
when the sky has no season
and traffic is light
thousands of the birds
become one body
with a gloss on its black
and broken soul
as it crowds onto lawns and disperses
in the day’s half-hopeful light
shining on the prospect
of change after war and occupation.
They are a kind of democracy,
bound together yet flying
separately with so many pairs of wings
flying to what unites them.
David Chorlton lives in Phoenix, writes and paints and keeps track of local wildlife. His newest book, The Porous Desert, was published this summer by FutureCycle Press, and testifies to his having internalised the desert during the past twenty-nine years. Some of his art work can be seen at http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com/.