Tailwind: Poems by a Teenage Naturalist

A Feathered River Across the Sky

Inspired by Joel Greenberg's "A feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction"

When the thunder would roll
On the sunniest of days,
I knew you were coming.
You were a dragon blocking out
The beaming rays of the sun.

Each one of you
a scale on the wyvern,
Which would take days to cross over our skies.
How each of you moved
In such perfect harmony,
Each tiny pair of eyes

Is forever a mystery.
As you twist and turn and fly,
There is no beginning;
No end.
There is only this plumaged drake
In a feathered river across the sky.

You were a bringer of chaos
And no one could escape your wrath.
As spring's new song is sung
You would fly that path
By the Millions! Billions!
You would gather here to raise your young.

But we had found your weakness
The tender squab of all your might.
Your future;
We struck in the dead of night
Leaving not one survivor.

Ten cents a barrel! And so many caught
That the excess were discarded.
Limp, lifeless, and never to glide
It was no longer for food, but the thrill of the shot.

It has taken a century
For your true song to be sung
In twenty short years
You went from billions to one
It is because of our greed
Dragons no longer rise.
Now we can only ever imagine:
The feathered river across the skies.

Passenger pigeons once roamed North America in flocks so large that they could take days to pass overhead. Small numbers of adults were killed to protect farmers fields, until squab meat became an industry in itself. The sport hunting of the adults soon became a popular "gentlemen's pass time," and in both instances the massive breeding roosts of the birds were targeted. Though some of their depletion can be left to a naturally fluctuating population, in 20 years we destroyed one of the most prevalent and magnificent species on Earth.