STORY about Arts posted on January 5, 2010 by michael werbowski
The Coming Plague
Who are the real agressors?
After the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides saw it.
In the sixth century A.D.
A stricken Procopius
In Constantinople,
Deplored it.
Many generations later,
Defoe reached back to 1665
To recreate its dread
As seen by one man,
Left alive.
For Albert Camus
Its horror became an allegory
Of Nazi occupation.
Now here we are again.
The birds sicken and die.
Our children watch in disbelief
The decontamination of playgrounds.
The military
Patrol the zone of
Exclusion.
Far away, at the crematorium
The diseased birds take flight as acrid smoke.
Plague is an anarchist that
Knows no borders.
It spreads across the Earth
Despite human efforts to
Make it to the contrary.
"Burn the birds," they cry
It's time for the "final solution."
Winged messengers of death,
Flying menace.
Rats of the sky.
The silent holocaust of the birds.
Was it nature's revenge
For mankind's greed?
Or heaven-sent punishment
For warlike follies?
Who were the aggressors,
The birds or...
Us?
We cowered in terror,
Clinging to the ground,
Robbed of dignity,
As the feathered survivors
Flew to freedom beyond
The lie of the land.
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