Grackles
A poem to say goodbye to winter
This poem was originally published in Elsewhere: a Journal of Place.
Grackles
Cold is bone-deep
Every cell within me agreeing
It must be so –
It is winter. And the cold is my body
Remembering where it came from.
The earth freezes to better crack open
Waiting for us to return
To sleep and slow decay
The death of nature throws our life
In our cold, pale faces.
The sole survivors of the season
Until the flocks of grackles cover farm fields
To remind us in their creaking, murmuring masses
That we can’t escape life, even in death
Even when we have no use for it
We breathe in, our lungs knowing better than the rest of us.
Love this 🐦⬛🐦⬛🐦⬛ Just welcomed them back here this week.
I witnessed a flock of what seemed like a million a couple of weeks ago, it was easily the most of any bird I have ever seen. I stopped what I was doing to watch, just the same way it’s worth stopping work to pick blackberries when they’re ripe.