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.”

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