Vanishing

^{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)}

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.