The Rust Of Migration
Poem by May N.
They come, not when they should,
but when the earth groans beneath its burden,
a footfall too heavy for its bones,
and the sky, which once told time
like a patient hand on a wristwatch,
now clutches at itself in confusion.
The birds circle—restless,
their wings a blur against a sky
too tired to carry them.
They do not know the rhythm of the earth anymore.
The compass has rusted.
The seasons are fog,
thick and unyielding.
They have come too early.
The fields are empty,
the harvest, a lie.
The crops, they do not rise.
The soil is cracked,
thirsting for rain that will not come.
And still they come,
drifting like lost notes in a song
whose melody was stolen,
the singer forgot their tune.
The wind tugs at their feathers,
whispering to them the secrets of the air—
that the currents have changed,
that the oceans are rising
where they once fed.
The trees that once offered shelter
are now ghosts,
leaving only their bones scattered
among the roots of cities.
The birds pause to listen,
but all they hear is silence.
No rhythm. No promise.
How strange, isn’t it?
To be so sure of your course,
and then find the ground shifted beneath you,
to see the air turn brittle,
and the stars blur,
as if the world itself is faltering—
as if the earth is no longer quite as it was,
not quite the world
that the birds once knew.
But they still circle,
always searching for the next patch of earth
to embrace their feet,
the next patch of sky
to feel the tug of migration in their bones.
There is something in them that knows:
This is not the end.
They remember the places that no longer exist,
the lush forests that have turned to ash,
the oceans that are eating themselves.
Still, they search,
and they search,
and they circle,
waiting for something
that has slipped from the earth’s grasp.
And isn’t it strange, too,
how we, who once knew the rhythms of things,
have forgotten?
How we, who once were stewards
of soil and sky,
are now the ones who wander,
dazed,
searching for something we’ve already lost?
How we built empires from the bones of the earth
and never thought to listen
to the groans beneath our feet?
But the birds—
they remember the place where the trees bloomed
and the waters held their secrets.
They know the way the earth should bend
and the air should feel—
not too thin, not too thick.
Not too cold, not too hot.
In the shifting patterns of their flight,
they are telling us:
We have broken the promise,
but the earth still remembers.
Do you hear it in the rustling of the trees?
Do you hear it in the silence after the storm?
The earth is waiting for us to learn
what the birds already know:
that we, too, can return
if we listen,
if we turn our faces to the wind
and remember the rhythm of things.
