Murmurations of 2020

by G. Carlson

The sky was filled with black crows the first time
we went walking together, your snug infant warmth
wrapped against my chest. 

I hoped you would open your eyes and look up, take in
with blurry new senses the cawing cloud of dark feathers
above us. Instead you remained in content slumber,
your world still confined mostly to my body, while I looked on
at the frenzied activity overhead. Hundreds flowed into the woods
behind the house, re-foliating the trees, randomly moving
from one branch to the next in a muddled but cohesive mass.

It seemed appropriate that a gathering of birds would be here today,
present at your introduction to the world-beyond-walls.
Before your birth I often observed the fluid forms of flocks
while driving past cornfield stubble to our doctor appointments.
Even as I labored I watched them out the high
hospital windows as they turned and veered by,
assembling in brown grass down below.

You were born in the winter, my baby,
when birds come together in the cold.
You give a sweet sigh and turn your head,
resume your quickly-timed breaths. And after hours
of passionately calling to each other in the trees, to what purpose
I do not know, the crows noisily stream out again
in the direction from which they came. 

For now, stay warm and small and
asleep. And when you do wake
to this season of white skies, to the
papery black flapping of wings in
our world, I hope you see it fully then,
the way this great cacophony of life
messily bands together,
shape-shifts, endures, ever expectant
for spring. 

Gwen Carlson is a writer based in Indiana with a background in science, currently working on a novel and poetry collection. Her work has previously appeared in Honeyguide Magazine, Consilience, and forthcoming in Chelonian Conservation and Biology.

(Editor’s Note: To read “Murmurations of 2020” with proper line breaks on your phone, please turn to landscape (horizontal) position.)