starling murmurations over boundary bay

"starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of "critical transitions" —
systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals 
becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. each starling in a flock is connected to every
other. when a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition. . . .

but what physiological mechanisms allow it to happen almost simultaneously in two birds
separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of other birds? that remains to be discovered" . . .

_ _ _

                                                       startling!

Quench a thirst ("Interior Deserts" by Juarroz)

medusa syndrome series IX

_ _ _

 Interior deserts,

vague litanies for someone who died

leaving all the doors open.

A gray cloak over another cloak of no color.

Excessive densities. 

Even the wind casts a shadow.

Mockery of the landscape.

Nothing left to call to 

but a flat dark sun

or an endless rain.

Or wipe out the landscape

with the wind and its shadow.

And there is one further resort:

drive the desert mad

until it turns into water

and drinks itself.

It it better to madden the desert

than to live there.

- Roberto Juarroz, Vertical Poetry

tr. by W.S. Merwin

_ _ _

Happy solstice! Welcome Winter 2013!

_ _ _

predicament

restless hands forge age
rings upon the face of [h]ours

with each breath I take
the days grow cold - lead-heavy
anchor into gravity

(tanka)

delicate hands

"do souls resist?"

                                                                                    or drift, or rift -

nothing but wine[glass]

"chance favors the prepared mind" - Ansel Adams

mother's eyes

hands that knit