WHITE BIRDS

Along the road to Tiburon

An unseen sun sparkles on the mildly choppy bay:

Perceived from the distance, each sparkle transforms itself

Into a glittering, white bird, flying low

And flirting with the water's touch beneath it.

Groups of shifting sparkles become massive flocks of fluttering birds,

Small, white, translucent and reflective, ..... like a glittering sea!

Light, a substance without pigment, flares into rainbow,

Then compresses back to whiteness, to living, feathered creatures

Soaring, swooping, disappearing and reappearing.

These birds are songs arising

From the coruscations of the sea.

They lift themselves above the yearning grasp of the water's surface

And embody within their feral supple motion,

More than any words can tell,

The exquisite purity of the poetry of whiteness.

Hovering, then skimming the tiny troughs of the undulating bay,

They are a glowing, visual gift to all the eyes that choose to look;

A casual gift born of the blending of wind, sun, and see.

Our position shifts,

And changes what we see,

The dazzling magic is lost from sight,

But not from memory.

@2004 ____ Photo and Poem by Muldoon Elder