Blackbirds Singing

Today, dear readers, I have a rare offering. Instead of contributing my words, I am contributing photographs. I have made no secret that I miss the beauty of the Carolinas. The large trees, green grass, distinct seasons, and abundant flowers and animals made moving back to Texas a tough transition for a woman who so craves aesthetic beauty. However, with time I have seen that Texas offers beautiful gifts of its own. In this case, it was my grocery store's parking lot. Birds, thousands of them, took flight and made swirling patterns across the cloudy sky one late afternoon last week, and I was fortunate enough to be carrying a camera. Enjoy! And enjoy the poem, writer unknown, that I have attached.

Blackbirds

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 one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

If we lived only in human society

what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being

here, in this curving and soaring world

that is not our own

so that when mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives

and when, even more rarely, we unite and move together

toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it’s meant to be.