Starlings

Yesterday when we were loading pots onto the Lass, we were startled and awe struck by several huge flocks of starlings shape shifting over the fields above the boat. We were booth oohing and ahing with each new formation and the synchronized swooping and diving which is captured in this poem by Dermot Healy...

A Ball of Starlings

As evening falls

over the bullrushes

parties of Starlings

arrive in flurries

to join the other shape-makers

at the alt. The swarm blows

high, dives out of sight

in a beautiful aside,

till there's scarce a trace

of a bird--

then a set of arched wings appears,

then another,

hundreds turn

as one,

and suddenly over the lough

a whispering ball of starlings

rises into

the blue night

like a shoal of sardines

gambolling unerwater

and, changing shape,

the birds

rise in the vast dark

like hayseed

till the puff-ball

explodes

and the birds

suddenly flip

again into nothingness

and when the roost reappears out of the deep

in a great teeming net

of birdsong

the din grows intense

as they build

these last perfect

arcs, these ghostly

gall-bows

before making

one final sweep

that ends

in a ticking globe

above the reeds;

then, chattering, the starlings spill

across the black fields.