We Are Tiny Little Birds Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

You may find it difficult to mark us
When we happen to fly single
We are very swift and
We do not fly long distances
And do not fly high

At times you might have seen
A formation of our group
In tens and twenties
Crossing you in jet speed

We thrive mainly on your left outs
Spilt grains
Minuscule worms and insects
And no where we compete with
Any of your consumables
Because of our petite size

Our feed and consumption is so low
That you practically ignore us

We stand unique
Compared to crows, pigeons, mynas,
Eagles and others
Our make is the best symmetrical structure
You can see in the entire bird kingdom
Our beak, body, wings,
Eyes, legs, etc are appropriately sized
And matching with each other

Our chirpings so gentle
Feable, least noisy
And many of you fail to notice
That we too can create sounds

We are not black, not while, not green
Not yellow, and we do not sport
Any striking stripes

You may like touching us
To have a feel of the yellowish brown
Dust-layered sort body of ours
You would have never done that

We nurse in us a pride that
We are not identified by the looks
Of an organ
But are by the entire bird as a whole

Your tribe does not long for
Eating our meat
Because we hardly house any flesh in us
Thus we are never in the hunter’s chase

We wonder whether you people
Have noticed that we are not frequently sighted
In your cities
Yes, we started moving out to a safe haven

We experienced shivering vibrations often
Our observation was that
We experienced that whenever
We passed near a tall tower
That came up first in the locality
We kept our corridor away from the tower
And in the process we lost almost
One twentieth of our resourceful area

Suddenly and soon
A good number of such towers
Sprang in different parts of your city
And our habitat started shrinking
To the extent that we decided
To leave your premises

The towers you erected
Are tall and it looks they keep emitting
Waves that put our body
Into a very disturbing and
Unbearable vibrations
This is non-stop occurrence
All through the day
And all days

Tell us
Can we stay on in this
Probably life threatening environment
Any further

We move away
Giving way to the waves you generate
From these tall towers

What exactly these towers do to you