"Murmuration" Yoni Hammer-Kossoy, Frequent Contributor & Poet of the Week

Murmuration

Yoni Hammer-Kossoy

It's there in the swirl of starlings

when day gives up its secrets at sundown

and it's there as brake-lights follow

brake-lights down a hill around a bend

give or take a lane no prior consent

or future commitment, 

there saying kaddish, I listen for cues

from strangers, can somehow feel them

as we step together

then apart, even there onscreen 

in a pixelated follow the leader of favorites, 

it must be how we look to God

as we blunder about, that swoop and roll 

of plans and scams, war and peace, 

dashes or dots on an over-folded map, 

it's anywhere except alone, cannot happen 

beyond an empty glass despair, 

but starts in silence as the barest dance 

and builds like static before a kiss

the way a field of yellow wildflowers

almost holds the world.

Poet’s Notes:  I fell in love with the sound of the word “murmuration” even before I knew that it refers to a flock of starlings flying together in huge and amazing patterns. But how do these birds know how to do that? Or for that matter, how do people – friends, loved ones, or even complete strangers – know how to come together to form long-lasting or fleeting communities of encounter and experience?