Rome, November 2011

A hundred thousand starlings rise
skyward in fluid streams and swelling throngs,

spinning, looping, stretching their chirping flocks like taffy
above the platinum, shimmering water,

their ten-ten thousand cries like stampeding waterfalls,
or electronic music gone viral in the chilled air.

A five-mile long serpentine river of dark, speckled birds
is rushing headlong into a new day

at the end of a terrible year, a year full of terrors:
death of thousands from the Fukushima tsunami,

oh death of my beautiful, delicate mother,
and death of my husband's lonely, soldiering father.

But the day is born anew, the starlings singing and
winging their terrifying joy into a world

that's fresh with dew on the surface of cars, bridges,
and ancient Roman ruins. Only look! 

There's the fallen Emperor Nero, crowned
with a dripping ring of bird guano.

Simply to be born is enough sometimes,
much harder to endure.