Here, there aren’t birds: Poetry Inspired by Poetry

By: Maddie Grooff


Here, there aren’t birds,

Here where the trees are covered with ash,

Here where the grass is dead,

Where the color has been drained by the blazing inferno sweeping the land.


It will take a long time,

A long time until the charred cuts in the body of the earth scab over,

Until the wind can rustle leaves in the trees again.

Until the water can sparkle instead of steam.


Reading the news sounds like a warning,

The radio is turned off,

But even the silence carries the stories.

76 killed,

Displaced people,

People are as unforgiving as the elements.


It’s easy to push it away,

Focus on your bio test or history paper instead.

To write some poem for Retrospect and immediately forget,

But even though it hurts you,

Makes you uncomfortable,

We must remember that we are one country,




And we must stick together.