AN OUTLOOK Poem by Peter Fallon

They have ruffled
the embers of evening
and flap from its flames.
They come like clockwork,
minutes later every eventide,
a loud returning that proclaims

the row of lines in which
they pause, en route to roosting
in the rookery, a place of rest.
They sketch black scripture
in the sky. They watch
from trees where they don't nest -

these pairs and threes, tens
and dozens making thousands -
while I, intent on praise
and mesmerized, wonder what,
as they fly by, they might be
and realize: they are the days.