STARLINGS 



THE yellow leaves of the elm, the burnt umber of the 

 chestnut, the red of the oak, the scarlet of the maple, 

 fly down wind like clouds of butterflies. A cleans- 

 ing gale spins them far afield, where each of them will 

 become a tiny renovator of grass or flower of the 

 earth. Some whirl up and dot the sky with pepper, 

 all the colours turned to black against the glow of 

 approaching sunset. No, those are birds far off, a 

 marshalled host, wheeling as one unit, the items spaced 

 as truly as though they were threaded on a netting of 

 invisible wire. We can make the poor mechanical 

 theory hold just a little longer if we imagine that an 

 unseen hand now elongates the meshes, now pushes 

 them short, so that the cloud of birds is now thrown 

 into a line along the hill-top, now flung into a vertical 

 column, now foreshortened into a single line, thin, but 

 very black, now attenuated every way, even torn 

 in two, the parts enjoying a brief autonomy, then 

 welding once more into a single cloud of rushing 

 wings. 



Arrived at the wood, they either roll over and over 

 along the tree-tops, rearguard passing to the van and 

 443 



