The Flight of Birds
How wonderful to be upon the isthmus
As birds take their migration to the south,
Then in a little while it will be Christmas,
The annual cycles go from month to month
Along their steady course; the pilgrimage
Of birds takes them great distance over time,
Fraught with great dangers at near every stage,
And much exertion. The ancestral clime
Beckons them, where their forebears went, as they
Make heavy sacrifice, as they have learned
To make such travel is the only way
To meet their needs; and so they have returned
Year after year, though they increasing face
New obstacles wrought by the works of man,
As ancient heritage thereby displace
As he o’errun himself in a short span.
The knowledge of the elders is diminished
Amongst the birds, yet still they make the trek,
Guided by stars or landmarks, never finished,
Hours without the food they like to peck,
And sometimes, the old instincts go awry,
A change in weather, and the population
Of an entire flock may sudden die,
As when, as they are making their migration
A storm surprises them upon the lake,
And as I take my morning walk I find them
So many corpses washed ashore it break
The heart to see the fate that is consigned them.
Yet even so, we say, perhaps this flock
Has been a loss, perhaps in other groups
The species will survive, because such shock--
With airborne discipline they move their troops--
Has been accounted for in nature’s planning,
And many, every year, upon the route
Are lost, perhaps two continents it spanning,
Perennial, and forward they must scout
Regardless though the patterns are in flux
From human intervention on the globe,
As movement pressed by need is nature’s crux
As forward every creature has to probe
For its survival, both accounted as
An individual, or member of species,
Guided by whatever best lights it has
Learned or instinctual, whereby it increases
The odds of its survival though against
Dauntingly difficult obstructions, dearth,
Ever-inventing predators, intensed
Pressures because of warming of the earth.
This one thing we may know: though man wreak havoc
Upon the globe, with his far-reaching lust,
With his economy’s expansive traffic,
Life as we know it faces risk. We must
Recognize that these animals, these birds
Are part of us, an inextricable
Component of our make-up, deep the cords
Binding us to them, and life must be well
If we respect them, taking heed of nature,
For every single kind that goes extinct
Though it be miniscule, obscure in stature,
Threatens our way of life, as with them linked;
If we respect, that we live in a system
Finely created by the Lord or not,
An instrument tuned with infinite wisdom,
Precision that once lost, the work is shot;
If we but recognize a common interest--
That though the change must come yet not too fast,
For none of us exist completely centrist
And suddenly the world may be recast,
We may, as humans, who strive for control
Of our environment, and mastery,
Survival may be challenged by a whole
Undreamt-of circumstance—that if first we
Don’t blow the world apart in all our madness,
For, having learned to split the nucleus
We run the risk that consequential sadness
Will decimate and doom the lot of us.
I look up in the sky and see formation
Of unknown voyagers, in their alignment
Making a V, these ancients of Creation
Having so vast a span in their refinement;
Or else, upon a night within my bed
Prior to reaching sleep, I hear the honk
And cackle of geese flying overhead,
Then dream of ancient warriors with conch
Before great battle; or before the gloom
Of night encloses, feel the froth and spumage
Of the Great Lake with me in my bedroom,
While somewhere in the night, birds with rich plumage
Are taking flight, along the lake shore guided
With the best instincts that they have, as we
Snuggle in bed, warm comfort us provided
If only for a while. They fly aloft,
Or some perhaps seek shelter for the night
In some auberge or nook, some drafty croft,
In conservation for the morning’s flight.