Iona Winter

The dawn chorus today sounded agitated. I lay in bed and listened before opening my eyes.

Autumn is upon us. Sunrise comes slower now, with its apricot-pink fingers.

Beyond the birds I heard chainsaws, down at the foreshore. They’d said the pines were to be felled, citing erosion and safety. But nothing was mentioned about rising sea levels.

I saw hundreds of confused and dislocated birds in the sky. Where will they go?

Nobody spoke to them, before the crackle of splintered timber. They weren’t warned that nests could be lost and many might face homelessness.

We humans do the same fractured things to each other.

A sound escapes me, mournful and tight. I cannot imagine a sky without birds, or tree limbs not being able to bend while refuges are crafted.

A world removed of them would be silent, empty and dead.

With no dawn chorus.

 

Author Note: ‘Splintered’ was previously published with Ad Hoc Fiction (April 2016). The theme for the edition was ‘Crackle.