SHOWCASE SUNDAY

If Not For Starlings

We walk the trail
shaded by oak and cypress

watch as the combined
weight of a hundred birds

splits a common cedar
the way a knife sinks

into a loaf of bread,
bending but not breaking.

You've got to admire
their decisiveness,

the way the starlings lift
and turn,

choose again
the cedar,

its strength and flexibility
a certainty to them,

unknown to us
until this moment.

- Irene Latham

This poem was inspired by a video like this one . Only the one I saw was very short and showed just the part where the starlings completely rearrange a tree.

The internet is a wonderful place for inspiration. One of the poems I am taking with me to workshop this morning is straight from a news article published last week: "NASA extends Phoenix Mission." And just now I started a new poem entitled "What the Spider Sees" after visiting 3 Little Chickies. Amazing how a change of perspective can inspire all sorts of things. Thanks, Kerie!

"There are two ways of spreading the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

- Edith Wharton