Murmuration
Murmuration
by Rethabile Masilo
A murmuration comes to visit our old days,
its black dots huddled as one, flowing spots
chasing each other from side to side, a school of fish
flying from a predator. We watch it blot the low sky
beside our porch, beyond the top of the height
of an old birch tree. There are silhouettes on the street,
this early in the night, going where shapes go at this hour,
even as sound pauses. Sometimes it'll surge off
and leave without committing to anything violent.
But at other times, swooshing in and out of existence
and blacker than ever it is—it seems—bursting
to speak something to the dusk, a revelation
of some sort; the death of a relative we'd long lost sight of.
It moves like a shoal of black mollies trapped
in a fisherman's net, looking for a way out, dipping
this way and that, then darkens our horizon and puts
unfriendly thoughts in our heads—two old people
out at dusk, on the porch of a small wood house.
its black dots huddled as one, flowing spots
chasing each other from side to side, a school of fish
flying from a predator. We watch it blot the low sky
beside our porch, beyond the top of the height
of an old birch tree. There are silhouettes on the street,
this early in the night, going where shapes go at this hour,
even as sound pauses. Sometimes it'll surge off
and leave without committing to anything violent.
But at other times, swooshing in and out of existence
and blacker than ever it is—it seems—bursting
to speak something to the dusk, a revelation
of some sort; the death of a relative we'd long lost sight of.
It moves like a shoal of black mollies trapped
in a fisherman's net, looking for a way out, dipping
this way and that, then darkens our horizon and puts
unfriendly thoughts in our heads—two old people
out at dusk, on the porch of a small wood house.
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