They were creatures
who walked the earth
on two legs. They were
different from all the rest
with their opposable thumbs,
potential to reason, and faith
in a thing they called god.
In the end, none of that
would save them.
When they wanted to be
like us, they invented
machines with wings.
They filled the air with
fossil fuel, they filled
the ocean with plastic.
When did they know
they could not turn back?
How much did they suffer?
I wish I could have flown
over their houses and nested
in what they called their trees.
Some of them must have had
good hearts but in the end,
they were a menace,
and no one going back
40 generations has ever
mentioned missing them.
It’s told they could be heard
singing to their offspring
in mornings and evenings.
Photo Courtesy: William Foley, Unsplash
Lisa Vihos
Judge's comment:
”Bird Story” is a kind of collective persona poem, voiced as it is by the birds left alive after a human apocalypse. The bird-speaker suggests that while the human desire for flight is laudable, human ambition led to the destruction of the race. There's an ironic sadness in the bird narrator repeating the ancient story of humans singing to their young.