Origin Story Origin

Interfering waves of scale-free
Behavioral correlations
Remind one of calligraphy,

If calligraphy kept melting
While being brushed into pale air—
Or of snows in shifting winds,

If each flake hid an agent
Responding to its neighbors.
The first story ever told

By low hearth coals, or whispered
In another stalker’s ear
Waiting for the prey to drop,

Or in a children’s circle
In the grass while adults ranged,
Rose from interfering waves,

Like the geometric clouds
Of starling murmurations,
If all starlings’ wings were words.