Monday Musing: Just-In-Time Poetry

Blackbirds fill the sky at Lake Anna State Park, Virginia

On Wednesday I will be turning 53 years old.

Although I have not spent the better part of my life out-of-doors, this poem arrived in a Writer's Almanac newsletter last week and was just what I needed to hear.


Blackbirds

by Julie Cadwallader Staub

I am 52 years old, and have spent

truly the better part

of my life out-of-doors

but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head

a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward

I saw a flock of blackbirds

rounding a curve I didn’t know was there

and the sound was simply all those wings,

all those feathers against air, against gravity

and such a beautiful winning:

the whole flock taking a long, wide turn

as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Read the ending HERE.