" A mown hay field appears, its blond stubble blackened by a flock of starlings. As I pass, the field seems to lift, peek to see what's under itself, then resettles. A pickup passes from the other direction. The flock lifts again and this time keeps rising, a narrowing swirl as if sucked through a pipe and then an unfurl of rhythm sudden sprung, becoming one entity as it wrinkles, smooths out, drifts down like a snapped bedsheet. Then swerves and shifts, gathers and twists. Murmuration: ornithology's word-poem for what I see. "

― Ron Rash , Above the Waterfall