Looking up

Those starlings,
that crowd of black wings
patterning the noon sky,
flow along a highway invisible,
unknown to us, we without
wings, stiff, anchored,
eyes on the rutted road beneath our feet.

How to look up. To risk
looking up, perhaps to lose
our footing in the enchantment of
cloud splendor, the heaven-
sent stabs of sunlight, the arrival
of rain on our dry fields,
our yearning hearts.