This is an ordinary story: one that we have all seen unfold before our eyes, but do not think twice about. Like the cold wind caressing your cheek in the mid weeks of November, this narrative should feel uncomfortably natural, as if you yourself have lived it. It is not everyday we see birds at rest, nor is it natural to only be at rest.

 

We must move to live, and that is what birds do.

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“Migration: An Interactive Flock” is a work of hypertext poetry that draws upon real observations of birds located in New Jersey, United States throughout the latter six months of the calendar year. By recognizing the communal nature of a specific group of birds, implications regarding emotion and lived experience were linked to the human understanding of the world through haiku. This piece of electronic literature hopes to immerse the reader in an avian world that works much like the human world does. With limited vocabulary and color palette as well as the inclusion of field recordings of bird calls, each haiku aims to connect the reader to another living creature finding their way through each passing day.