James Richardson
October 2004

Anyway


The way an acre of starlings towers and pours
rapidly through itself, a slipping knot,
landing so few feet down the furrows (the whole skywriting
like a secret no one knows they have given away)
is one of those breathtaking wastes
(sun and the seeds they feed on being others)
in which something senseless, even selfish, absurdly magnified,
becomes grandeur (love is another).
Sometimes the flock, banking in unison,
vanishes an instant, like a sheet of paper edge-on
(a secret, anyway, is the illusion
confessing it would make a difference).
I watched this happen once - two seconds, hours -
till I understood no kindness, not a shadow or stone.
And they did not come back,
though I waited all evening (and it was you
I waited for). Though the sky turned black.

From As If, Persea Books/National Poetry Series, 1992.