* * on the laying down of starling slings; * * (a behest reblessed for the lyrical one, astride her dancing spheres)

i used to shoo off
the starlings at my window.

not because

they come across
like ill bred humans,

ganging up to push
ought else
out of their way

in
the rushing
onslaught

of self focused
competition
fission.

or even because,

not indigenous
to the Americas,

they
followed
the
felltrodden

Euro-crash
of
steepling
white peopling
in
its traditional

invasive trajectory.

(some foolish ghoul
first let them out
in a New York City park,

sometime in the
nineteenth century,

and
the next thing you know,
they were "homelanding"
everywhere.)

no.
my objection stemmed
from the fracking of sound.

for in the venting of each
fermenting of spring

their preening pre-teens,

with the most horrid,

raucous voices imaginable,

descend like some
preternatural

cackling debacle,

surrounding the trough

that rocks
without my window,

tirelessly demanding

that other birds
feed them.

and not even
their tired parents,
mind you,

railing mostly
at wee winged ones,

often as small
as one third their size.

it's incessant, and bloody horrible,

like a creaking chalkboard
in a war with itself
so profound,
it erases any notion
there ever were bells.

and all the sweet sounds

in my accustomed accompany;

the haunting lilted sighs
of reflective mourning doves;

the complex soundaplex
inexhaustible toolbox
returning, refriendling,
red winged blackbirds flaunt;

the furbled, gurgled
cheeky squeak of chipmunks;

the fluted tunings
and
lone intonings

sprung in pensive isolation
from
nuthatch and woodpecker
pace laced dissertations;

each rendering
a thoughtful comment
on
the endless repetitions

resighting
my fledgling
soliloquy,

fusing musings
into hatching
batched scratchings;

or else a
tickled counterpoint,
punctuating harmony
for those classical
spinning discs
adorning my mornings;

all drowned out
by
the terrible din.

and it goes on for days,

these echoes
strangling
their painful strains,

like a jagged
racked hack
unhinging its binging
of
aural water torture.

*

but then,
in the bustle of a day
in an unexpectant May,

as i clapped
smartened hands
to scatter a stubborn

ruffed and scraggly trio,

one of them fastened
onto my eyes

a piercing, indelible
double take

of
riveted
wide eyed surprise.

i could see him
thinking,

and the
primate prattle
of transliterated tattle
went thus:

"oh! my blinking, iridescent stars!

you're speaking to ME!

i didn't even
know
you were there!

what are you?
and
when the heck
did such a weird creature

come into this world?"

*

and there was i,
smack in the middle
of
one of those moments

that changes me
forever.

for clearly, i'd met

a thinking

starling person,

capable of crossing

those ephemeral

and shivery,
tenuous steps,

(scattered,

seemingly at random,

amidst the yawning

silent caverns

daunting the loneliness
beleaguering

the physical fray)

on the arched,
parched stairway
that travels
from mind to mind;

a wondrous and rare

transcendent connection

wherein
my awareness reached his,

and his, mine,

and
understanding arose.

and thence,
it quite naturally follows,

i left off forever

shooing

those starlings
of a feather away.

for the Universe
had

compelled me to admit

our resounding yes;

like ants, and puppy dogs,

and
quirky primate neighbors;

like the question
plighting the eyes

of ever discerning deer;

like magic's
sparking lark
awaking fireflies;

or those homing trees
roaming the loaming,
rooting nutrients
to avail their ailing neighbors,

and all the rest
of that myriad beatitude

of earthen berthed relations

involved in revealing

the feeling kaleidoscope

with
its niches and facets

so
necessary to express,

(let alone contemplate)

the boundless astonishment

in
the panoply of life,

starlings are people too.

*

- Evan Hawthorn the 28^th of October, 2018