The gods might be laughing in the gray-
light twittering of the flock that lives in
the courtyard, mostly your basic starlings
with some itinerant blackbirds mixed in.
But before the chirping cacophony there's
a different sound, an urgent rustling of
hundreds of folded wings, heard through
a window and mistaken for the quick steps
of bustling Japanese maidservants as they
flutter about the palace in pastel kimonos,
or the muffled clatter of infantry coming to
attention in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas.
In another season, alert at that hour, the
synchronous flapping comes clear through
the air, the sign of spontaneous assembly
of the consolidated mind of the flock.
Then the laughter begins, the euphonious
delight of the collective at finding itself
whole after a night of separation, when
each disparate element was isolated,
alone.
