Clattering, jabbering, unkind and wise
collective nouns fall into my brain today,
describing those avian clouds
that fill the sky in springtime and fall
like terrifying, wheeling, glorious storms.
Those are starlings
and they come in murmurations
Geese come in an unsurprising gaggle
more surprisingly accurate
girls do, too
Some of these terms are concrete,
Set,
Oxford English.
Others are spurious, unverified,
misapprehended.
But all of them are surprising
and wonderful.
What a world! What great groupings it contains!
And what extraordinary ways we have contrived
to describe it.