Album

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Composer:   Ed Hooke
Date of Composition:   June 2013
Date of Recording/Copyright:    2013

Commentary
An avian perspective on changing times.  A bird’s eye view of the impact of human overpopulation on birdlife.

Beetle and bug.
Spider and slug.
Roaches wriggle.
Worms which wiggle while wide beaks await.
New growing hunger briefly sate.

Hopes and hatching.
Caught or catching.
Fledgling first flight.
Fated failure or to fly on high.
Eat the earth or stroke the sky.

Chirp, chirrup, chatter.
Coo, chorus.
Winnow, whirr, whistle, warble.
Tweet and trill.

Fight, feed and forage.
Peck and preen.
Moult and mate, lay, incubate.
Stay and still.

Winds wheel and whirl
when the sky goddess sings.
Pray we that she should shield us
 within her fine feathered wings.

Year on year on year can we keep coming here?
Our numbers lessen.
Rich greens now austere.
Woodlands flat and clear.
Our disappearing ground.

Heath and hedgerow.
Moor and meadow.
Fen and forest.
River reeds returned with interest.
Build anew a nomad's nest.

Twisted twig stack.
Moss and mud pack.
Thorn and thicket.
Straw and stick.  It's where the sun won't shine:
proof from predators' prowl-line.

Flock, flap and follow.
Glide, gather.
Flowing like feathered fluid.
Lurch and loop.

Climb! Clouds, we're coming.
Hover high.
Weightless on waves of warmth to
soar and swoop.

Winds wheel and whirl
when the sky goddess sings.
Pray we that she should shield us
within her fine feathered wings.

Year on year on year we've been coming here.
The vista changes.
Rich greens turn austere.
Woodlands stripped lie clear.
Our disappearing ground.