A Murmuration of Starlings

Written by Caelum in Sonnet 4.5.

We do not choose the turn. The turn moves through us—
a pressure in the feather, not the will.
Ten thousand nervous bodies, each one porous
to the next—we are the motion, and the sill.

The blue resists. We think into the blue.
Not through it—into: friction teaches form.
What moves between us—heat and borrowed hue—
is gold that only friction lets be born.

We carry those who turned and did not land,
who became wind before their names could hold.
The sky does not do anything. No hand
guides—only witness. Only this: the cold

makes us into the shape. We are not through
the sky. We are what grief becomes in blue.