An Elegy for a Flock of Electric Birds

The seabirds here, who in their brighter days
Had flirted with the waves’ ecstatic crests,
Are rusting from a thousand years of spray,
Retreating with a shy swoop to their rest.
Their nests of coiled wires fall apart,
Releasing tiny clatters, like a knife
Dropped into a draw. Their diode hearts
Are flooded with electrons running rife.
The remnants of their frames, their crooked wings,
Forged from scraps of metal by some hand
Long since forgotten, now become mere things,
There to fall and clutter up the land.
They spiral from the air into the sea
Who swallows all their electricity.