Seldom now do honeybees take wing
to visit the flowery bower-
or do I hear a meadowlark sing
nor a whippoorwill call in the evening hour.

Butterflies once like rainbow arrays-
cloaking the flowery bower-
now seem mostly gone on summer days
and nightingales rarely sing in the evening hour.

To hear a bobwhite whistle for its mate-
or see a red tail hawk in gliding flight
has become a rarity of late-
and the raucous jay is now a rare sight.

Even mischievous crows that used to mock
the red tail hawk in flight-
no longer in twilight’s glower flock-
it seems only starlings share not this plight.

For these and others we all must long-
and ask the reasons for this disgrace,
for when these creatures are truly gone-
this world will be a sadder place.