The Songbirds' Lament

The potential promise of warmth on a cold, foggy Saint John end-of-summer night heralded the death of seven thousand lyric dreams, with hundreds more needing to be euthanized.  Countless numbers of songbirds, the inspiration of poets since the poem's inception, perished on a Friday night at Irving's Canaport natural gas plant in east Saint John during a flaring operation that could be mere weeks away from being unnecessary.

The pain one must feel in your heart when coming to work to see that you unwittingly participated in extinguishing such an overwhelmingly beautiful innocence and recognizing a long-thought dead dream in the form of a hurtful twinge as another ember dies inside your body.

There's a lot of pain in this place...

And anger.

Dreams that once existed, only to be replaced by safety  disguised as financial security compacts are less than a memory as more and more fight having to recognize the realization that the promises were false and your new dreams have been built over swampland.

Scent is likely the most overlooked of the senses.  When one is bombarded with too much of a particular offense, you shut down the ability to heed the warnings, as a form of defense, not perceiving the irony in granting the intruder free reign.

Respect the alerts that nature has gifted you and act, before your last ember of hope is put to rest and be wary of the promises that come as a warming glow in a cold, gray night.