The Starlings Descend

They flow out of a pocket of sky, a door in the air no one saw until dark wings shower over our heads. Their plumage has a metallic sheen, as if they were made in parts, in some elvish workshop, their wings hammered on last. Wings that talk to other wings, for no starling is a starling alone; it is ten thousand starling clones welded into flocks of feathers. They descend where they please. a road, a lawn, a parking lot, they descend, and where they land that is their land, their acre of lordship. See them strut like dinosaurs, eyes as black as an eclipse. See them stab the light, push it away until all that litters the ground is prey. Owl, eagle and hawk fear to draw near, for the flock is here, and it will leave when it wants to. We avoid the pecking mob, hurry by, look away, as another swarm of avian androids stakes its claim upon the earth.