Roosting

I.
In Rome, starlings swirl and turn, making impressive architecture pale in comparison. They soak up the warmth of the city before roosting in trees.


II.
A few months after my mother's death, my father and I (wearing the last sweater/skirt ensemble she made for me) posed in the yard, one of his birdhouses hanging in the background. 

He and my mother fed them, housed them, watched them from the breakfast room. There, in the bed where she planted a weeping cherry, a feeder and another house beckoned songbirds, whose chirruping we heard at meals.

As a child, I loved thumbing through the little blue guidebooks, studying the silhouettes on the end pages, trying to memorize sizes and shapes.

III.

A house in the clouds shimmers in a window, and I remember affixing black bird silhouettes to the large glass panes on a Birmingham porch. The thump of a bird on glass brought someone to check for signs of life. 

IV.
So many roosts, so much flight, so many thumps, over so many years.