the flock

i saw them on my way into town, a black swarming flock of starlings, hundreds of them, pulsing this way and that like its own black galaxy. later, as i was unloading my car, i heard the loud chattering and chirping, a high-pitched cacophony. they had come to visit, all settled into the the crowns of the scrub pine and oak not far away. i walked quietly into the woods until I was among them, the acorns falling like hard rain around me, as loud as hail on a tin roof. i heard what i thought was a strong gust of wind from the west, overtaking the bird chatter. then, as noiseless as a mouse walking on cotton, the hundreds of these frolickers fled east. the wind was a concert of their thousand wings.