Starlings at dusk

Half dark, half light,
The dusky red and orange sky,
The majesty of the evening light
Welcomes us, enthralled, 
To nature’s auditorium,
This festival of sight.

We find a spot to wait it out.
A half moon looks on,
The best seat in the house.

The stage is bare,
The lights dim.
And then, 
First a murmuring, an awakening,
In the wings semi-nocturnal arguments erupt,
Playground chatter.
Like rowdy teenagers, they interrupt
In high-pitched discourse,
Clicking, gurgling,
These loutish delinquents of the sky.
Then more, the noise swells,
Hubbub, babble, a commotion brews.

And then, look, in the sky, 
Silhouetted against their fire red canvas,
The aerial acrobats stand by,
Thugs, no more.
Flying.
Twisting and turning,
Rising and falling,
Like iron filings shaped by a magnet
They dance the evening by.

The shapes, the shapes they make,
These acrobatic artists of the sky,
Painting their canvas with hope and light.
Pulsing, breathing as one.
One flash a dragon,
The next, a whale, a dolphin.
Black then grey,
Dark then light,
An otter! A throbbing, living, moving spectacle to thrill
Their devoted crowd.
Fleeting images, never still
But vibrant, full of life.
Living sculptures in the sky.

And look, another group
Late to the scene but keen to make up time,
They race across the stage
In hot pursuit.

But soon, too soon,
The darkening light.
Like dancers at the end of the night,
Their energy spent,
The ballet ends.
The speckled hoodlums return,
Like rowdy clubbers arriving home
They rest in trees, in reed beds, 
Still keen to chat the night away,
Their acrobatic displays
Consigned to memory,
Teasing us for another day.

And we, our weary way we wend,
Cold, but warm from the glow 
Of this natural pageant,
This circus of life.