Plague stuns the world as wildfires torch the West

and drive migrating flocks from yearly flyways.

Flycatchers, warblers, cranes—they won’t reach Mexico,

won’t find nesting spots in food-filled winter havens.

Lightness falls from the air—feather and skin and bone—

as thousands of birds drop in the Southwest desert.

Once made out of song, they plunge silent, starved,

from a cloudless sky, their souls drifting upward.

Here below we mourn our diminishing family,

sing a song of sorrow for a fading future.