Mind in Flock, Mind Apart
       

They scatter high, the grackles. What's to know
of mind in flock? Some baffling drive to share?
I keep apart my thought. They swoop and go

as if some harried god inhaled. A show
of beauty, then—the great lung thrills with air
that scatters high the grackles. This I know:

they perch like thorns, that blackened croaking row
along a bough. We too sing what we bear,
but keep apart most thoughts—they swoop and go

like hawks, drab hunters circling, circling slow
over small things: to dive, to feed. To tear
and scatter high. The grackles (those I know)

stay close in hunger: flit down, grub low,
blue clucks, green squeals—and each self gone where?
Not kept apart. Less thought, more swoop and go—

a particle, a wave. The peppered dusk. But no,
what weird squalling—is what's here in me out there?
They scatter high, the grackles, what I know.
They keep a part of thought. I swoop—they go.

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Copyright © 2015 K. A. Hays All rights reserved
from Southern Humanities Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission