In this way it begins
With waiting
Grey light and white time - blank, uniform.
In this way it begins
Passive, at two in the morning
Not quite nausea; not quite discomfort
Inexorably awake awake awake
I can’t write my way out of this.
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 6:33 AM UTC
Coiled, grey March –snow patches slow to disperse on the townscape -
trying to turn the year.
A grey plume drifts through the low sky, like smoke but not smoke,
slow to disperse
reforming and palping like a long streak of foam on the sea; a grubby bag
turning, plastic and drifting
dividing in the sky: a shifting exclamation mark pulls out of shape
turns pale to vanishing, is gone.
A sound like pages riffling, like a thousand paper fans rustling, a darkening in the air
turning in the low light all together
wheeling , breaking, re-combining, stretching again. Sky geometry.
Still that dry whisper-clustering
of many wings holding close formation, turning and swooping together.
The cloud is back, is gone, is back again – endlessly
The grey light feels unnaturally late
above the Eagle Rec
starlings are moulding shapes, most beautiful murmuration.
The complex maths of defence – stay close, stay close –
turn, wheel, stay close.
Against the pale dusk the moment stretches beyond bearing,
that high, remote plasticity floats on as the light hesitates
dragging out the turn towards darkness.
The hawk must be near, striking into the crowd -
spin, turn on a wing-tip, wheel close, divide and turn: with luck
she will take your neighbour.
The black bunched crowd drops as one, to roost, to rest.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 1:01 PM UTC