pulsating flock

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.

John O'Donohue


(i watched this flock of terns swoop all around me. the dark form of the flock kept changing, elongating, congealing, moving as one, turning white then black, until they suddenly headed towards me, closer and closer until i could hear all their little voices as they swept past me and split down the middle. i lost my breath. and doesn't it look like the head of a bird?)