Starlings
. . .they flash upon the inward eye which is the bliss of solitude. . .
— William Wordsworth, “Daffodils.”
Johnson grass, bruised purple-brown, tassels our side yard.
This afternoon starlings flailed that patch for seeds, a
desperate pecking.
Walking from behind a wall, I startled them, and all their darkness
struggled toward hackberry trees, overcoming gravity with rowing of air,
breaking its blue with black wings.
Last night this was so dear. Starlings peppered my dreams,
a dark snow falling upward, blanketing trees and sky.
They were a world reversed, unnatural
natural things.
.
Alice Sanford lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is a Vanderbilt graduate, affiliated with The Porch Collective, Rockvale Writers, Hudson Valley Writers, and Chattanooga Writers Guild. Art-Life and other print and on-line journals have published her work. When not teaching or writing, she pays attention to her city-yard’s wildlife — birds, foxes, rabbits, coyotes, and grandchildren — or reads another good book.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 