It started in the west, behind the break of trees

A racous caw of alarm,

“Coming, coming, coming!’

Other corvid voices adding “Closer, closer, closer!”

“Coming! Coming coming!”

“Flee, flee, flee!”

Innocent of cause, I watch and listen.

I cannot hear the engine noise carried on the breeze

until long after the Chikadee aand whipporwhill, the finch and jay

join the siren song.

“Evacuate-ate-ate, Evacuate-ate-ate!”

“Fleeeee we will! Fleeeee we will! Fleeeee we will!”

“Go, go, go; hope, hope, hope”

“Fly fly, why?”

“Not me, not me, not me”

“Shhh,”the mother sparrow says to her late brood, “we stay stay stay.”

“Danger! Danger! Danger!” the murder echoes through its ranks.

Even the donkeys on the next door farm begin a warning bray.

The mockingbird, city born, makes siren sounds as it flit from tree to tree.
Then I hear the engines south of me, and see them come

the metal beasts that eat the trees.

The roads needed clearing, a man a house,

and every pen a page.
I understood the need they met, these ripping, gripping teeth of steel

but never understood before, how those who live there feel.