Starlings
Can you keep it so,
for an obstreperous population?
for a congregation of mediaeval scholars
quarrelling in several languages?
for busybodies marketing
in the bazaar of green leaves?
for clockwork fossils that can't be still even
when the Spring runs down?
No tree, no blue cage can contain
that restlessness. They whirr off
and sow themselves in a scattered handful
on the grass--and are
bustling monks
tilling their green precincts.
Norman MacCaig
From: Flights of Imagination: An Illustrated Anthology of Bird Poetry, compiled by Mike Mockler, Blandford, 1982.
The other day, my phone failed to complete an operating system download and got stuck in a verifying loop, thus requiring a trip to the Apple Store at Rosedale Center.
On the way back home, my daughter at the wheel and my granddaughter in the backseat, we found ourselves at a stoplight and had time to watch a "congregation" of starlings bustling around in the grass, seemingly impervious to all the busy human comings and goings on a hectic Saturday in the city. Starlings are not native to America. A hundred birds were first brought over and released in Central Park by Shakespeare enthusiasts in the 19th century because they wanted us to have all the birds that he had ever mentioned. Being adaptable and assertive birds, the offspring of those original immigrants now number around 200 million birds from coast to coast. You can learn more about them at the Cornell Ornithology Lab website. Fascinating stuff, at least to me. I can't begin to tell you how interesting I found this book to be...I didn't expect that reaction.
Over a period of about 12 years I operated an online bookstore which I called Ginger Tea Books. It was never wildly successful, but most years, I generated a small income from it and realized some tax advantages but the actual "raison d'etre" (reason for being) was being able to go out and buy books! I'm pretty sure this book was acquired in one of those buying trips, but never got sold and finally found a place to nest by all my other poetry books. It's going to now spend some time on the groaningly big stack of books by my bedside along with copies of Living Bird magazine. I support the Cornell Lab with donations and get their beautiful full color periodicals. The birds of America are so diverse and learning about their habits, lifecycles and migratory adventures is eye-opening. Our birds are citizens of the planet and their welfare and success is wedded to our own. I hope you choose to look closer at the lives of birds in your neighborhood and become amazed and motivated to protect and preserve them.
Speaking of amazing...check out this video of the "murmurations" of the starlings over Rome.
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