Vanishing

<sup>Nearly one-third of the wild birds in the United States 

and Canada have vanished since 1970, a staggering 

loss that suggests the very fabric of North America’s 

ecosystem is unraveling.  

              –The New York Times (September 19, 2019)</sup>

As the world’s cities teem

with children—flooding 

our concrete terrains with shouts 

and signs—as the younglings balance 

scribbled Earths above their heads, 

stand in unseasonal rain 

or blistering sun,

the birds quietly lessen 

themselves among the grasslands. 

No longer a chorus but a lonely,

indicating trill: Eastern meadowlark,

wood thrush, indigo bunting—

their voices ghosts in the 

chemical landscape of crops.

Red-winged blackbirds veer

beyond the veil. Orioles 

and swallows, the horned lark

and the jay. Color drains from

our common home so gradually,

we convince ourselves 

it has always been gray.

Little hollow-boned dinosaurs,

you who survived the last extinction, 

whose variety has obsessed 

scientific minds, whose bodies 

in the air compel our own bodies

to spread and yearn—

how we have failed you.

The grackles are right to scold us, 

as they feast on our garbage 

and genetically-modified corn. 

Our children flock into the streets 

with voices raised, their anger 

a grim substitute

for song.