Birdfall
The
next someone says the sky is falling
I
shall be more inclined to listen,
because
this morning I saw a strange thing happen.
I
saw a bird fall onto the tarmac, and I promise you it wasn’t dead.
We
might say it hit the ground flying.
I
don’t know any more if it’s true: that only dead birds fall to the ground.
Here
we don’t cry wolf, because the wolves were wiped out with the smallpox.
And
the African painted wild dogs are nearly extinct.
Soon
we won’t be able to cry anything at all –
not
lion, not leopard.
Certainly
we won’t be able to say, I was chased by a rhino on the way to work.
But
that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
The
sky is falling. The air cannot hold the birds.
Cities
are crumbling, even as skyscrapers go up.
Our
stories are about extinction and eradication.
We
can’t speak of miracles; such as birds defying buoyancy.
That
would be mere superstition. If we insisted that it happened,
some
more research would be required.
The
research consortium would then patent
the
gene that causes live birds to fall from trees.
When
the right hand is trying to breed back the wolves,
the
left hand is holding workshops about development infrastructure.
The
rhino keepers dart, dehorn, and then decry the waste.
Have
you ever seen a lump of rhino rotting?
While
the cameras flash, the horn makes it way to Asia.
The
technology is assembled in Asia.
Part
of our development is built on cadavers.
Me,
I’m keeping my eyes open. There might be other birds falling.
Maybe
this not such a rare phenomenon.
I
want to hear what earth might be telling me.
I
might to catch a new idiom; speak in tongues.
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