Bird Song
At five a.m. the avian chorus starts
So fervently you’d think they had not heard
That men subdued the earth and killed the birds
(Too many hit the skyscrapers, etc.).
Now these descendants of the dinosaurs
(The last great owners of our pendant world),
Not having learned their present lowly place,
Sing out, while all is still, as if it were
Their species’ dawn.
Their species’ dawn. Earth without bird song
Would seem some other world entirely—
As strange, without the frigid change, as Earth
In ice age, or its great primordial fires.
And yet today, so many spend their hours
In little worlds where birds aren’t heard at all,
As oblivious to their empty skies
As were the dinosaurs to their demise.
Stephanie Holden is an attorney living in the D.C. area.
I’m reading this while listening to the birds that have nested outside my classroom window.
Unfortunately, birds are not the only creatures humans have on the back foot. We downplay and turn a blind eye to the demise of those plants and animals we share the planet with, at our peril.
Thanks for raising awareness to the dangers facing Earth’s dwindling biodiversity with your poem.