HUNTER’S BIRTHDAY
by Joanna Gilman Hyde
Clyde River, Nova Scotia 2:22pm
I pulled only half-way
off the road on Cape Island
to watch the biggest cloud
of Starlings I had ever seen –
they swooped, as a blanket
over my car & billowed
into a bare tree, decking it
with their blackness, leaf-like
& when they exploded
like fireworks
to mat themselves on overhead wires
I was entranced