The canary in its cage
has fallen off its perch and died,
along with 450 million birds and animals
as Australia burns.
People huddle on the shore,
stranded by the flames;
firefighters work like ants
to battle the apocalypse
swallowing the world.
Last night was moonless.
As I mourned the million creatures
in solitude,
the party went on as usual:
fireworks amidst the embers,
hope, midst the despair,
fiddles playing Auld Lang Syne
while our whole world
burns.
for Kerry's Skylover Word List. I used canary, cage, moonless, solitude.
I will share this at Earthweal on Monday for Brendan's prompt: Wildfires
I feel that disaster hits the world but there seems to be so little we are willing to sacrifice to save it (and ourselves)
ReplyDeleteI feel this poem so deeply, Sherry. The images of fireworks from around the globe o New Year's made me cringe.. more so than ever before, I had a visceral response that verged on hatred.
ReplyDeleteThe world is burning and the multitudes just continue to ignite the flames.
Thank you for using words from the Skylover List, and for your voice, raised in mourning for all the animals that have burned to death.
Like Nero, eh? This is loss onsuch a tremendous scale that I can't even bear to think on it for long. :-(
ReplyDeleteSad.
ReplyDeleteYou evoke the horror and loss as well as the gentleness of memory on the fallen lives of our fellow beings, whom our actions not just today, but for countless centuries, have carelessly destroyed. It's a miserable shame, and the worst is that not even this may be enough to wake some people up. thanks for being a voice for the dead and the voiceless living both, Sherry.
ReplyDeleteThat canary has died so many times that we are out of warnings. I hid inside from the fireworks on new year's eve for all of the reasons your poem makes clear.
ReplyDeleteI thought you might sing an Auld Lange Syne for the animal dead -- it's so hard to imagine 450 million of them -- This is Australia's Hurricane Katrina, government preparation and response has failed, the work of rebuilding may take decades ... And the fires just won't stop burning. It won't be known for some time how many animals unique to Australia are going / will go extinct from this, but that's the real castrophe, isnt it? I've seen so little from indigenous voices yet as well. ... For some coming earthweal challenge I'd like to do Ghosts, as in, pick an animal which has gone extinct and sing its lonely song. Thanks for doing this.
ReplyDeleteI can hear the songs of the lost animals and I too wonder about extinction of species. Who will grieve for them?
ReplyDeleteBushfire and fireworks in the poem remind me of Antilia (private home of 27 stories including a helipad, in the midst of slums in Mumbai) where Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani lives. Feel so ashamed of being an Indian
ReplyDeleteHad the same thought, not quite so eloquently though, at the sight of fireworks on new year's eve - "while our whole world burns"
ReplyDeleteFrom the opening lines to your masterful ending, this is heartfelt and spot-on.
ReplyDeleteSadly, Sherry, some scientists think that the total of lost animals is closer to a billion, if one adds all of the insect life that has been destroyed.
ReplyDeleteI can't even think of anything to say about any of this, Sherry. I'm grateful you are able to.
ReplyDelete