The Flock

January 4

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds. The nearby fields, covered in birds, the trees covered. As I approached, the birds took wing. The flock responded to my presence; each bird flew, the sky darkened with their flight; wave upon wave, boundaries intact, taking action in the face of obstacle. The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting, my instinct rehab. I am learning my intuition; my sponsor spoons it to me from the steps. I suck it down never knowing what it is about this process that makes me better, anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly. I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I’m nervous. I get glimmers, things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat. In truth, I don’t know ‘how’ I don’t need to know, any more than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.

When I respond to life events, when I spend less time self-concerned, I am so much closer to self.

“Aren’t we spiritually centered?” quips my sponsor.

“Yes,” I reply. “One day in a row, I’m going for the record.”

“That’s all the birds have; you’re doing as well as they,” she smiles and pats my back.

Say hello the next time a bee seeks you out

*

One Singular Crowd

Isolation among the isolators

is replete with metaphor and theme.

Expectation blithers loudly

but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome.

I pirouette in a room filled with dancers

but we do not touch,

we just spin near one another full view but little contact.

Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear

and know that I am alive.

The flush of neighboring cheeks

attests to duplicate conditions there.

We are moving together sometimes in harmony

but other times in antipathy, dependent all the same.

We are the army of independent meanings.

Individual cases sharing one slender goal

but that’s all that we need.