Starlings in Winter

This morning I was mesmerised by the sheer volume of starlings flying past. The stream of birds just went on and on, most heading back to the farm down the road I suspect. Some stopped off in the field next door as usual and it just seems the right time to share a poem I found the other day by Mary Oliver called 'Starlings in Winter':


Clunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theatre of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again,
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in this leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I wait
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.