In regard to the wildness of birds towards man, there is no other way of accounting for it… many individuals… have been pursued and injured by man, but yet have not learned a salutary dread of him.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
Darwin's Finches All right, fine, the first few birds Could not have seen this coming. They saw only dark shapes—large, lumbering, branch-winged birds Tipped with tufts of down. Of course the little birds were curious. Of course they believed the branch-wings Were benevolent. And you’re right: Once those first birds had been grabbed, Necks twisted, No, they couldn’t have gone back To warn the others. But the finches just kept coming, Bird by trusting bird, And the men kept killing them, And the flock kept thinning. You might think at some point One bird might say to another, You know, there’s something strange About that beach— The birds who go there Never come back And maybe One bird did say this, And maybe The warned bird went anyway. I guess I understand.
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Image by Flickr user Brian Gratwicke under Creative Commons license
Welcome to LWON Kate. I love your poem.
What an arresting poem! It literally stopped me in my tracks. I’m so glad to be reading your work again, Kate!
Thank you so much for reading! I’m so glad it resonated.
Thanks, Kate, wonderful.
Thanks, Kate, and welcome! I never think of Darwin as being involved in the death of finches, but of course he was. In the first entries in his Galapagoes diaries, he writes of these docile birds that are captured so easily by a boy sitting on a wall swinging a stick in the air. How different the figure of John James Audubon seemingly off on his own with his famous fowling rifle, killing and bagging birds in great numbers. How different their writing.