The Lonely Bird

I listened to your hollow flute-like song. Your mating call. You sang for a female that would never come. Kaui-o-o. That was your name. The lonely bird they call you, for you were the last of your kind. Whose sound is now captured in a virtual space, to be listened to in doleful silence.

Songbirds are delightful creatures indeed. A voice silenced, never to be heard again, except through the cold reverberations of this electric contraption called my speaker. But at least we can hear your song. But what about the songs we do not hear? The utterances of the people who have been silenced. Our human Kaui-o-o-s who jostle for relevance in this indifferent world.

These words are for you. They are to remind you of your worth. They are to tell you that not all of us have forgotten you. You who work for a dollar a day, every day, for 12 hours per day. Yes, for those who have suicide nets as protective gear to make sure you assemble iPhones for us who count ourselves among the privileged few.

These are words of a place I have never been. For a woman I have never met, I watched you dash yourself over the stairwell. I don’t know your name, but you, I see. You would have died had it not been for the net to break your fall. This is for you, for I heard the shrieks of your disappointed cry when you realized your brains were not splattered on the floor. Home. Your fingers bleeding and sore, your eyes blood-red from the 12 hours of being indoors. You cannot afford that which you make. Your song. Your story, I listen each day.

These words are for those who lie prostrate in the rubble of war. Few mourn you, perhaps no one at all, for many of your kin have prematurely journeyed into the netherworld. This song is for you, too, who don’t know whether the next drone strike will hit you or whether the next person to be auctioned in the open air in a Libyan slave market will be you.

For you, who are uncertain if the over-packed boat on which you ride will take you to rich lands alive. Your die was cast when finally, they captured the colonel in Sirte. A tyrant to some. A savior to another. Sure. A slaver. Never. But he died so many could buy body and soul.

This is for you. This is for your worth. Yes, for you who cross the border to pick apples and husband the farms for people who deny your worth. Indeed, this is for you who pick bananas for a pittance a day in the sun all day. You don’t read these words but still we converse. I hear your song. Your story I must convey.

I pen this piece for you who don’t know from where the next piece of grub will come. For you who watch your young ones expire for want of food. For you who sift through the dung heap of life foraging the land for a morsel of compassion on which to feed.

Listen. It is not yet time to die. For you; feet shackled with anguish, and backs bent with longing for respite in a world so cold. This is for you.

I listened to the Kaui-o-o sing. Briefly. A doleful silence fell when the song stopped. And I say to you; you are not alone.

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