God was annoyed. 
“People think I’m responsible,” he complained
as he watched them pulling
the bodies of children out of the rubble.
“Sometimes things just happen.”

Mrs. God was holding back her tears.
But later she suggested they take
a long walk together. “You get credit, too,
you know, when you deserve
no such thing.”

“It’s strange,” he agreed, as the glorious light
from the west swept across the heavens.
“This, for instance.” He and Mrs. God
watched a great flock of starlings
rising and falling as one, a murmuration,

a miraculous unfolding at the day’s end,
the movement of thousands of individuals
with a single mind. So it seemed.
“And yet,” said God, “the starling
is not a pleasant bird.”