Can You Hear a Wild Bird Singing? | Poetry of Mankh |Axisoflogic.com

“To the Mi'kmaq, the sun is “the closest thing we can see to our Creator,” and they teach that birds sing their prayers to the Creator each morning as the sun rises in the east. In fact, they may be praying to help the sun rise up so that creation may continue.”

- from Bird Medicine: The Sacred Power of Bird Shamanism
by Evan T. Pritchard [1]

As a wild bird lover, I am deeply saddened about the “Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation.’”

“Thousands of songbirds.” [2]

You can listen to virtually any musical genre – day and night, past and present around the world – on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and more, but thousands of songs are gone.

“Flycatchers, swallows and warblers were among the migratory birds “falling out of the sky” in September, with carcasses found in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska.” [3]

Birds and sky are like peanut butter and jelly, Abbott and Costello, bread and butter, stars and night sky (how some birds navigate). But because of man's viral strain for blowing shit up ― like a toddler who can’t crawl, a teenager who can’t masturbate, an adult with no job and no roof, an elder who can’t even remember memories ― birds falling out of the sky . . . and fish, not out of rather, in water with microplastics.

Part of my literary ‘science’ is to look for synchronous and/or symbolic-literal connections that ‘prove’ something. Those birds died for our Military Industrial Complex sins. There’s more to it than that, what with climate chaos, yet the gist is borne out by the following:

“The first deaths were reported on 20 August at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico...” [4]

Could have been anywhere but it was White Sands Missile Range. Let’s follow the trail:

“White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a military testing area operated by the United States Army. The range was originally established as the White Sands Proving Ground on 9 July 1945,” previously known as “Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range (1941).” [5]

Virtually synchronously I heard in an interview, economist, professor and author Michael Hudson say: “...the West has reached the end of the whole 75-year expansion it had since 1945.”

The mass die-off of birds is highlighting the death of the Western boom-time economy based on the Military-Industrial Complex(MIC) which, post-WW-II 1945, began a steroidal expansion to its current estimated 800–1200 military bases worldwide. Airplanes, missiles, rockets and the like became more important than birds, and the MIC and McDonald's became more important than food, air quality and Mother Earth.

“The first atomic bomb (code named Trinity) was test detonated at Trinity Site near the northern boundary of the range on 16 July 1945, seven days after the White Sands Proving Ground was established.

• After the conclusion of World War II, 100 long-range German V-2 rockets that were captured by U.S. military troops were brought to WSMR. Of these, 67 were test fired between 1946 and 1951 from the White Sands V-2 Launching Site. (This was followed by the testing of American rockets, which continues to this day, along with testing other technologies.)” [6]

And that's not an isolated occurrence. Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, writes:

“In 1951, in violation of the treaty, the US established the Nevada Proving Grounds (what would later become known as the Nevada Test Site and is now known as the Nevada National Security Site) on Shoshone territory and began testing nuclear weapons – without our consent or knowledge. We suspect that Nazi scientists brought to the US as part of Operation Paperclip – to help the US develop nuclear weapons – were involved. ...

“When the fallout came down, it killed the delicate flora and fauna, creating these huge vulnerabilities across thousands of square miles of Shoshone territory. The pine trees we use for food and heating were exposed, the plants we use for food and medicine were exposed, the animals we use for food were exposed. We were exposed.” [7]

Everyone's talking about the green future yet what about cleaning up the tainted past haunting the present.

Nowadays there's what's called “deep listening;” here's one way to train yourself:

“Chasing flycatchers in Angel Fire, New Mexico”

~ 6 minutes

NOTES
[1] p. 118. Bear & Company, 2013.
[2] See here.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] See here.
[6] Ibid.
[7] “A message from the most bombed nation on earth”

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic, as well as a correspondent-poet for the WUSB 90.1FM radio segment “Radical Words”. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. His website is here.

© Copyright 2021 by AxisofLogic.com

This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!