Starlings in Winter (a poem by Mary Oliver)

Hey everyone,

I love December. I love the sound of the word! I love looking forward to the ​first snowfall​. I love the streets getting one then two then seven then twenty houses with ​Christmas lights glowing​. I love ​getting buried under piles of heavy blankets on a cold night​. I love ​wishing strangers happy holidays​.

And since I became a birder five years ago I certainly love the December birds. Many birds leave Toronto but many stay, too: ​Northern Cardinals​, ​Blue Jays​, ​Black-capped Chickadees​, ​Cooper's Hawks​, and, of course, ​European Starlings​.

Starlings are one of those birds that when you first start noticing them you suddenly start seeing everywhere. Puddles. Telephone wires. Brick holes in buildings. In dazzling murmurations over the highway.

European Starling via ​Birdfact​

I found this beautiful poem about Starlings from (who else!) Mary Oliver. Pair it with ​'Why Birds Matter' by Jonathan Franzen​ or ​'The Sun' by Mary Oliver​ or my article ​8 reasons why it's time to become a birdwatcher​.

---

Starlings in Winter

By ​Mary Oliver​

Chunky and noisy,

but with stars in their black feathers,

they spring from the telephone wire

and instantly

they are acrobats in the freezing wind.

And now, in the theater of air,

they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;

they float like one stippled star

that opens,

becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;

and you watch

and you try

but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it

with no articulated instruction, no pause,

only the silent confirmation

that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin

over and over again,

full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,

even in the ashy city.

I am thinking now

of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots

trying to leave the ground,

I feel my heart

pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.