Poetry Friday

A little Mary Oliver for this cold day.

First, a note about the image.  Local photographer Steve Metz generously agreed to let me use one of his pictures.  He takes amazing photographs of birds and such, posting them at Broadcast Photo.  If you subscribe, he'll send you regular pictures called Your Daily Bird.  He recently launched a new project called Citizen Pork which highlights Cincinnati's creative class; people who make our city much more livable.  I'm sure he'll never feature himself, but we all know he belongs front and center.  Please check out his blogs and show him some love.


Starlings in Winter
by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,

Photo Credit: stephen metz

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 theater 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 the 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 want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.