Starlings

Starlings

A noisy cloud descended

Upon our pasture bare

And called to my attention

A flock of starlings there.

They clacked and shrieked in numbers

Impossible to guess

On their way to somewhere

They stopped there to eat and rest.

The ground seemed black and moving,
Swathed in the feathered herd.
Such boisterousness, it seemed to me,

Should not come from a bird.

Like a thousand nagging sisters
Haggling on my lawn,

They sat noisely discussing
Almost an hour long.
There rose in me an evil
To dabble in their fate.
I snuck out near their resting place
And stood beside the gate.
Mischieviousness in my heart,
I loudly clappped my hands.
A silence fell over the pasture, then
Like the whoosh of a thousand fans,
They rose as one together
And lifted into the air.

Above the trees, it looked as if

A black cyclone hovered there.
Just as a pang of guilt

Began to swallow me
This noisy, black cyclone

Settled back into my trees.
I gladly opened window,

I gladly opened doors
And listened to the starlings song

As I sent about my chores.