After Rinko Kawauchi’s Seeing Shadow
Look I’ll say it before we get started
time to settle your side bets
a murmuration
it is called a murmuration of starlings
Concerning starlings
most information is practical
backyard-birder level
and most often concerns not-starlings
as in
how to feed grackles but not starlings
how to feed sparrows but not
starlings a hierarchy
emerges
even among the nuisance birds
one must be the least wanted
even so its geometry is captivating
like watching someone calmly untangling
handfuls of string
an out-of-focus cascade
like shook-out silk
over a mirroring wave
On the bird internet we’d 100% be
considered nuisance mammals
Once Mary Oliver famously wrote
you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
but I can
we can they’ve done the science
you can break murmurations
into parties of seven
suddenly the unearthly
high mind of it the vast I am
Locutus of Borg of it
contracts to a molecular level
of large parties in a Times Sq. lunch rush
These are my nearest starlings
Mom
Greg Dad
[ ] Susie
Piglet
so there’s a space left
for what exactly
it’s unsettling
to live outside the exactly gate
how will I know the true form of my last starling
maybe
it’s poem space maybe it’s you
ugh that’s so embarrassing
Sometimes I am a super-child
and only have space
for six discrete forms of Mom
current Mom
historical Mom pre-Mom
ode to peak Mom nano-Mom
post-Mom
the word mom itself now jumbled
its shape just a head and knuckles
pulling up on a lake dock
a way I’ve never seen her do
My point on the mom-continuum
demands being honestly in love
with a nuisance world
Can this still be a love poem if it lacks a defined interest
if everything interesting demands an attention
that isn’t just like love but is
an exacting un-optional love
Can it be a love poem if I have to admit
I’ll need Mom
to hoist out of this black lake
before me that I will need
my own beautiful piglet to watch me go
yes there is a correct order
so if pressed one could divine
a mathematically optimal best day to go
the least potentially painful
Listen
when I work it out
I will buy us all dresses