snapshot: starlings, maybe

A boy stands, looking out

through the barred window

of the cornfield

row on row

straight as blue silos

straight as red barns.

His father’s tractor

turns more dull furrows

to the flat horizon and

only that distant cloud

dares to show a curve.

And this swirl of starlings

-- exploding --

from the yellow grain.

- Ralph Murre

That's an oil painting (about 3 x 5 feet) I started years ago, then abandoned, unfinished, for a very long time. I recently dug it out and completed working on it, I hope. Somewhere in the interim, the poem came to me. And no, it is not autobiographical. Exactly.   ~ R.M.