Challenged by Christopher Rowe to make a case for Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver being Sword & Sorcery, here’s my take.
A yearning for action, to be unbound by rules of nature and civilisation, to be free in the consequences of one’s own judgement. This, more than the other lens of the Murphian tenets, screams to me that this poet was reaching for feelings, for notes, for modes of the same that Howard reached for with Kull, Moorcock did with Von Beck, or Wolfe with Sevarian.
Freedom in action, closeness of body. What better metaphor for this than starlings in flight, preening and dancing in the chaos of their own lawless world, yet any individual bird would be the lead in their own part of the swarm.
To be that thrumming string, coiled, ready to leap forth: yet, to analyse and introspect. That, to me, is the essence of sword & sorcery.