Lone Bird Poem by Francis Poole

One night
I was awakened
by a lone bird
calling out loudly
a kind of reveille
alerting me to
an approaching train
which rattled the darkness
with piercing blasts
from its horn.
As it faded into the distance
my inner eyelids closed
and soon I was stumbling into
a small rundown movie theatre
for the one millionth showing of
The Last of Our Fine-Feathered Friends
in Imax and 3D.
It opened with a Crow
clutching the top limb
of a fire-blackened evergreen
in a forest of torched trees.
The sky was burnt orange
and toxic smoke rose from
thousands of smoldering fires
stretching to the horizon
in all directions.
The Crow began to shriek
in defiant disbelief
at the surrounding conflagration.
Its scream was enough
to make you cringe in terror
then weep.
Suddenly it sprang upward
with a guttural curse
and unfolded
the great black prayer shawl
of its wings.
The heated air lifted the Crow
and carried it gently on
cushions of smoke and ash
until it reached the ocean
and became the size of the period
at the end of this sentence.