A satellite saw their prints from space, that’s how big they were. 
They grew all they wanted, then some, no reason to stop. 
They went wherever they felt like. 
When they walked the ground trembled. 
When they stopped it still shook. 
Something had to give, they were getting too big for their boots. 
So did God say: “Enough is enough. If things go on like this 
there’ll be hell to pay?” Well, they did and there was, 
in the form of volcanoes and a giant comet. 
And that was that. 

But not quite.
When things calmed down a few millennia, those left 
crept out from wherever they hid and looked in amazement, 
first at themselves, all shapes and colors, then this gorgeous 
green world and bespangled firmament which they decided 
right there to praise, which they did, and still do as e.g.,
an owl, deep-eyed, smoldering at midnight. His voice in the forest
makes you want to quit your job, go somewhere far away.

But not yet, as a red-tailed hawk screeches at a flock of pigeons
rising in alarm over mountains’ spring mist, as crows,
shiny as split anthracite, tear bits off the sun, suck stars
down to the pulse, spit them out. There they go, screaming 
like car crashes, scatting themselves hoarse. If they sleep you
wouldn’t know it. Come morning, they’re shadows passing over
walls, clipping porches, setting off dogs, holding us all
in their brilliant eyes, and are gone. 

In their place swallows launch from our barn like those I watched 
at Calvi, flying from the citadel to mass over the sea until 
mountains turned purple and a full moon rose over the broken land 
we now call beautiful, over the mole light blinking green, over
mud nests that twice a year get whitewashed with the citadel,
and—

hermit thrush trills bringing me back to myself where phoebes
on the porch are silent now, soon to be gone, following star-maps 
in heads the size of hazelnuts, but chickadees, my favorites, will stay 
where they are to see things through another winter. Yes, this is
the place to be where everything’s where it should be, from red-winged 
blackbirds clinging on cattails, to the blue heron staring at his reflection. 
I love this place, happy here among the birds, praising them all times, 
all places, grateful to volcanoes and the comet that made them.