Starlings in Winter

Portrait of Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver 1935–2019

Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing over buildings, dipping and rising; they float like one stippled star that opens, becomes for a moment fragmented, then closes again; and you watch and you try but you simply can't imagine how they do it with no articulated instruction, no pause, only the silent confirmation that they are this notable thing, this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin over and over again, full of gorgeous life. Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the leafless winter, even in the ashy city. I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it; I feel my boots trying to leave the ground, I feel my heart pumping hard. I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.

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Labarthe Beatrice60 words
  1. Labarthe Beatrice Switzerland

    poem on snow/winter

    this is more a private mail than a comment: I love snow and wiwnter and am preparing a poetry book on the subject with an inernational flavour and would appreciate receiving a short poem from you to include it in the book whose profits will be for children in Afghanistan (no negativity in the poem). Thank you for your answer

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