Starlings

They're back, fluttering, flittering up and down, high in the trees then dropping, feeding on the ground, tossing leaves to find hidden goodies, soaring again. They make a great, recognizable sound.

There are fewer in the woods, when they visit, than there were in that sky river of starlings I remember experiencing at the MVA one morning when I was setting up the driver license test course before I began the early truck test. That year they streamed horizon to horizon. 1996. I paused among the orange traffic cones to just observe for a minute, to open my senses to the world that included those amazing birds. I wrote a poem, but it seems to be as far gone as that sunrise. All I have is the date, title and the memory of that streaming flock. They flew as if they were the cheery, chittery flow within invisible-to-me river banks in that day's cold, gray, November sky. I remember the smell of asphalt and exhaust and moist, moving air. I have not forgotten the starlings.