Pecking Order; Numbers II

by 

Jerry D. McDonnell©2014



In 1890 100 Starlings from Europe were liberated in New York’s Central Park.

And there it was. A campground with wood table, travel trailer parking

just off the less traveled Iowa county road surrounded on two sides by a corn field

forest, a farmer’s house across the way. The Midwest. Apple pie peace USA.

At summer’s sundown the Starlings came out of that Iowa cornfield

forest shattering that Midwest apple pie peace

       like rabid rockets over London,

            like bombers over Berlin,

                 like armed atoms over Nagasaki.

Starlings came by the thousands like an exodus,

their liberated wings colliding, fouling and fearing the air, the ground, the ears,

thousands, tens of thousands of wings battling for space.

churning the air into a cacophony of sound, a rasping racket, a descending wee-ee

like, like, all the world’s treaties and prayers beating the sky black,

snapping, beating, flaying, fouling, dying in madness.

Madness. Human kind maintains claim as the dominant species

yet such tiny, gram weight birds made of hollow bones

can commit massive genocide with impunity?

Suicide, genocide, war-o-cide, is our claim.

We demand first chair in death of our own, the conceived liberation

of others. We, we human kind, we dominate, dominators be!

Damnation, be damned. We the dominators specialize

in damnation. We write books on the subject,

books, orders, rules, laws, not mere guiltless guidelines.

How do these starlings dare to challenge our rights? What do they

know of philosophy, tenets, religion, hierarchies, politics?

We are the pecking order, loaned them that there term.

They may have outnumbered us this night

but the morrow will tell the tale of who

dominates, who damninates, who remains

            armed and alive.

                       

2.

Morn’s light revealed the small, lissome, feathered,

corpses laying dead, dead on ground covered like, like,

bodies left by Genghis Kahn’s army.

Infinite numbers of their own, dead, dead.

Such tiny warriors, so light, feather light, lie

deep in death around our feet, our dominate, step lightly, feet.

We are not all so heartless. We honor the dead in battle,

have an annual celebration of war for those of ours slain,

take notes to prepare for the next exploitation, award

allowance to the enemy to count and care and, dispose of theirs.

                                    3.

We took our morning tea outside the trailer,

as do generals and admirals and congresses of

power and privilege do to ponder events of import

from distances to date decorously maintained.

Conclusions, theories, solutions, plans, all offered,

conferenced, adjudicated, announced.

How do these starlings dare to kill themselves before

we kill them? Bit cheeky, I say. Damn Arrogant.

Terroristic. Infidels. Communistic. Socialistic. Anarchy!

Like the rats in New York City who have massive

unexplained die offs when astronomical

numbers are reached . . . steps must be taken.

“Those darned starlings do that every year,”

the cornfield farmer said. “Crazy huh?”

Yeah, crazy. So do we, so do we.”