Canaries

Blind little flock, wretched and meek,
Singing sweet lies with obedient beaks.
They feast on the dream of a picket-white life,
Of union-bound labor, of husband and wife.

No thought of the sky, no taste for the air,
Content in their cages, too simple to care.
They chirp to the miners who tunnel below,
As Gaia weeps for the scars that they sow.

But silence will come, as silence must,
The songbirds will choke in the miner’s dust.
The light will flicker, the tunnels will bare,
The poison will rise, unseen in the air.

By the time they know, the miners are gone,
The bars will remain, though the voices are drawn.
A breath too late, a fate unmade,
Left in the dark where the echoes fade.