The starling is my darling, although I don’t much approve of its habits,
Proletarian bird.
Nesting in holes and corners, making a mess,
And sometimes dropping its eggs
Just any old where – on the front lawn, for instance.
I think it can sing too in springtime
They are on every rooftop, or high bough,
Or telegraph pole, blithering away
Discords, with clichés picked up from other melodists.
But go to Trafalgar Square,
And stand, about sundown, on the steps of St Martin’s
Mark then in the air
The starlings, before they roost at their evolution
Scores of starlings, wheeling, streaming and twisting
The whole murmuration
Turning like one bird, an image realized, of the city.