The Grackles at Sunset
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To be there when they first arrive—grackles--
thousands of them in the brown stretch of grass between rough barked pecans. They crowd this wide space with a glistening ruckus. They take rude turns, push and shove at the birdbath. Opening their wings the flock rises, falls rises again like a broad speckled sheet lifted and shook then smoothed across the field. In the near distance is a greater flock. How I wish it would come closer to me here watching this shifting stippled cloud streaming through the easement beyond the fence. To be there when they arrive—a noisy electrified mass-- is to vanish, the self, I mean, And every mean thought pushed aside by their singular purpose in being. (published in The Painted Door Opened, copyright 2014, Carolyn Dahl and Carolyn Florek, Cardinal Press) |
The Grackles at Sunset, acrylic on canvas, 2015
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