“Some Words for the Week”

I found myself writing poems about the

birds no longer singing

How when I looked up

at the sky

there was nothing left but air

and traffic sounds

in my head this silence

from what used to make songs of the

morning

was permanent

And part of a bigger

dying thing

that defining struggle of my time

the great murder of the world

that is so stepped on

and shushed

by those who have built their fortunes

on what they’ve tore from the ground

and from us

but I realize in this case

I was wrong

I thought all the birds were dead because

of climate change

that things had gotten so bad that the

chickadees

who I once say

flitting between branches

we’re all gone

but I realize it was simply winter

and as I load my car to drive down the

canyon to go to work

the sun still pink from the dawn

I hear the birds like a rush of yesterday

and music and

I see that they have returned

and I am glad for now

that spring is here

that the tulips below my window are

starting to bloom and that

swallows are building nests

in my wood shed

and are singing,

and I can hear them

and the sound is sweet

I am glad that I was wrong

I’m glad mistook migration

for extinction

but I will not be wrong forever

one day the birds will not return

their populations are declining

at alarming rates each year

we have poisoned the sky

and the sea and the soil

one day the birds will not return

and what will we do then?

Alexander Shalom Joseph is a writer from Gilpin County. He has two published books and one more forthcoming in the Fall of 2022. For more information and to subscribe to Alexander’s Newsletter go to alexandershalomjoseph.com