PART OF A LIFETIME

On this day in October,

driving over the train tracks,

I saw ahead of me what looked

like a big black puddle

in the middle of the pavement.

Then the mass of starlings trembled

and from its center rose up, pulling

its edges along with it,

as though an invisible magnet

had been lowered over a saucer

of iron shavings. By the time my car passed,

starling regiments chattered at ease

on the crisscrossed power lines.

I wonder what’s worse, transitions

or the lack of them.

The trees along the edge of the field

waved their Fauvist flags, but not

at me, not at any of us.

— This poem appears in the May 14, 2018, issue of National Review.