Birds Poem by Francis Duggan

They go to sleep at nightfall and wake at daybreak still they are not shackled to time
And though their life span compared to ours is much shorter they have inspired the poets to rhyme
With no concept of death it would seem and if you don't know of death then death you don't fear
Though 'tis known they crawl into cover when they know that their end is near.

Some parrots known to outlive humans but on average birds live for ten years
But suppose they too have their good and their bad days and they have their phobias and fears
The owls they will kill them in darkness and the hawks and eagles will take them by day
The worm and insect is taken by the small bird and to the big bird the small bird falls prey.

Even those acquainted with the workings of Nature so little about Nature know
The migratory birds fly south in late Fall to escape the frost and the snow
They soar above the vast World Oceans and thousands of kilometres they fly
And back north to breed in the Springtime they travel till the day they die.

To me birds are amazing creatures and though a few species too heavy to fly
I envy them their innocence and beauty and their freedom to travel by sky
Each species in behaviour so different and great stories of them I recall
Yet I know so little about them in fact very little at all.