The Birds

I cannot say there is a hole where my heart once was
assuming a heart knew love, felt love

Instead there is a weight of such enormity, so heavy I can barely breathe
The house is silent, even the cats..tip toe, do not speak
to one another, as if
They sense my disquiet or hear it as loud as it plays
in my head, nonsensical chorus by day

Nightmarish talking dead return to quibble in my dreams
I barely breathe and outside
look around, or better not, as madness is everywhere
Everywhere...those poor oily birds staring, blinking unable to breathe
unable to make a sound, to find a drop of water fit to drink

People lie and insist they speak the truth, everywhere
I remember, not much but this one truth lived and I could see it...

the lies, all those lies lived outside
and we all knew they were lies, the public persona lies but there was
a Line between right and wrong, we knew the Line
now....only this fog of grey

That island we once could swim to
the refuge where we could rest if life was hard, we could work, sweat knowing
it will be better, if not us, the kids
there was a reason to fight forward

I see it all now and stare, blinking
Did I hear they are asking if the birds should be cleaned, saved?
Thousands nesting watch their eggs coat, choke from oxygen, unhatched
Mates drown under thick viscous slime, unable to move except and until
another oily wave pushes them toward a beach, bullrushes, a marsh, another plume they say
is boiling close by, spilling black gold that made a few men rich but
the birds, I keep thinking, those birds blinking unable to see through my tears
their oil covered eye lids, can no longer see

Can we recall mercy?
She dictates Man close their eyes now blinded with pain
they should not suffer to live
another moment between what was once humanity

RachelSinger(c)
2010