Today's poem is by Nadia Colburn

Upflying
       

Whole flocks of geese in my childhood honking their way
North—

The streets dirty with pigeons—

The sky blackened by starlings, each small, pointed wing
so close to another's it was just a blur—

Now, three billion birds are missing.

We wake to so many forms of emptiness;
so much loss greets us in our sleep.

In my childhood, I thought the world I'd entered
would be the one I'd exit.

In the poplar, one grackle whistles,
not to me.

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Copyright © 2024 Nadia Colburn All rights reserved
from I Say the Sky
The University Press of Kentucky
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission