Starlings in Winter
Chunky 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 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.
~Mary Oliver, from
Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays, 2003
___________________________________________________________-
sometimes I am an
earthbound creature
plodding along
day by day
bowed down,
burdened
by the ills of
the world
beset too by
burdens of my own making
it is all so very
heavy
this fear and
anger
these
expectations and hopes
and I am pressed
into the earth
my feet sink into
the soil
and my heart
follows
I cannot rise
and yet
I do not stop
one foot goes in
front of the other
and on I go
seeking that
presence that can give me wings
so that I may
rise and spin
and might feel my
“boots leave the ground”
Ah!
may the Sacred
rush through my soul
prompting me to “think
again
of dangerous and
noble things”
of generosity
and forgiveness
and love
(which are
dangerous and noble)
may it wash away
all fear
with love
so that in this
winter of discontent
in this
wilderness of greed and abuse
I might be full
of “gorgeous life”
and travel light
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