Starlings

Starlings are able to accomplish murmuration as each bird only pays attention to the nearest seven around them, moving together. At least that is what I have read. As a rectangular beam of blue light is aimed at my entire face, my mind drifts away outside with these celestial performers. It is still January and they have taken up occupation within me ever since New Year’s Eve. These birds, as a cloud, had danced atop of wind, turning the invisible into folktale or a frenzy to be witnessed. I sat and watched a sun set lastly on an imaginary milestone while these bird-sized bodies focused on creating a singular wave. Their privilege, to dance unabridged into the new year: unabashed by traditions, untied to resolutions or wishes, undone as individuals. Actors putting forth their daily play until the dusk curtain closed. 

     I often ruminate, as these birds outside my city window distract, on the places in which I always thought I would end up. Surely somewhere more intertwined with an awe aimed not at birds but rather, a god. These days I find that to dwell upon each sermon my mother’s pastors used to give of heaven is not only to consider the lilies, but the birds and all those left behind. In my imagination, I turn to preach at a congregation. I wonder, once you reach that place, if you will miss those below, above your own hymning voice. Past your own boredom and vice, will you look down below on these very starlings, call their movement a kind of gyration, circling so closely that many morph into one, and think of them only as sinners? When instead they murmur only so that they may share in some grand secret, blend into one energy, themselves interbeing – together, together, together, together, together, together, together.