From a distance
We were just specks
Meaningless
“No account”

Quiet
From where they stood.

Perspective
Is a strange partner
It’s message moving one
Into dissonance

Our rhythm
The organized explosion
Exact
Trained
From untold centuries
A single tip of the wing
Moving the entirety

Blustered wind
Roared past our feathered ear
Thunder
Created by the masses

It’s all a choreographed dance
And we are perfect
At its execution
Sheer numbers call to predators
And all other inhabitants
“We are here, we are many
And tonight,
This is where we will sleep”

In 2011 I started making multiple exposure impressions that included the dreaded European Starling. They are hated because they are not indigenous and displace other songbirds. But to watch a murmuration is to witness nature at its finest. There is just nothing else like it.

A faint rumble
Tugged at the heart
Of our young bodies
Looking to challenge death
Riding its crest
For a moment’s climax

It’s a calling
That kicks off the shoes
Sending the reveler
Dancing to the cooler landing

By day’s end though
There is parity
With the heated earth

Stripped of binding clothes
We jumped into the cold
The cool
The ok
The perfect

We screamed and laughed
Imagining this
As real life
A forever dream
That would refuse to be
Awoken from

As we rested, we baked
Half dead
Half alive
The distant sounds of pain by one
Stung by the ray
Were overcome

By the tempo
Of time marching forward
With each wave

We understood
The sea was reclaiming
Pieces of our joy
Calling us again
To test ourselves,
Taunting the forces
Of our mother earth