KALLIOPE, A JOURNAL OF WOMENS' LITERATURE & ART

Currents by Ruth Stone

Something about a flock of birds toward evening.
The weather reports sleet, snow.
The hot males riding ahead,
the swamp ridged in last year's cattails.
Ego, vanity, the male strut.
Oh, that burr and sweetest whistle.
In another week, perhaps a quick melt
and we'll hear them clinging to the old stalks
staking out their claims.
While from the south
the slow shadow of the migrating females
like Cleopatra's barge,
the oars dipping,
the fringed canopy
like clouds of sweet rain
rippling behind.
Eternal tribal ritual,
the dense flock,
undulating packet of the future,
great sperm bank of the galaxy;
the billions of the separate
that gathers itself into the one,
summer after summer.

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