Like a canopy of darkness

they shadow the ground for miles

on currents that lift them

back to their roosts.

Years later I ask my father

if he gathered us

to watch thousands

swoop down on trees

sit wing to wing

until morning branches cracked

under their weight.

At daybreak did they leave the oaks

bare?

He says we never saw them abandon the hollow

catch a new wind to an unharvested south

but often would pile into the car to see their return

black streaks on the upward drift

of a September afternoon.

Poem by Chella Courington (from: Southern Girl Gone Wrong)