Where were the birds who are back,

Singing a recovered symphony

That repairs time’s mortal lack

Of notes in human cacophony?

 

They had retired from an abuse

Far fatal than coronal infection-

They joy that the covid afflicts in turn

The creature whose boorish dereliction

 

Over centuries of crass advance

Infected the earth with a presumption

That the globe would answer to their greed,

Whatever their illiterate assumption.

 

The covid to them a messiah is

That inflicts death as instructive tool,

So a new race of men may understand

That Nature is no perpetual fool.

 

The birds are harbingers of life

Who, in choric prophecy,

Interpret for the fallen race

What is lost and what may be.

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