when words cannot speak anymore the situation is serious

forbidding just one word
spoken in public
opens the First Amendment
to the thought police

governments who fear to hear
the voices of their citizens
are well advised
to mend their ways

imagine a world
with no humans left

without
    man-made sounds
    street noise  airplanes
    laughter shouting fussing babies
    cars  radios TVs machines
    pop songs string orchestras
    
instead
     birdsongs  leaves blowing in the breeze
     sounds of rain  of springs and rivers
     deer splashing through a creek
     wild pigs snorting through the forest
     the sharp cry of an eagle
     owls hooting under the moon
     anmals rustling in the underbrush
     ivy decorating empty window frames

imagine
    all those poems
    nobody can read

over two billion people
these days are waiting to commemorate
the birth of one whom they consider
humankind‘s savior

it happened more than 2000 years ago

since then it has not really been established
from what he has saved us

looking at our history
does not help much either

maybe this is a good thing
such indeterminacy can be quite uplifting

after all
who does not like to be saved?

there is
a very fine line
between
news and nuisance

in our time
we think we know
most animals of the world
from films and videos

yet
seeing
an echidna come out of the underbrush
about to cross the road
but then
    looking at all the cameras
deciding to quietly go back home for a while

watching
a young humpback whale
launch her tons out of the sea
in the sheer joy of breaching
falling back in a white splash
that sends your boat rocking

feeling
the hard back of a wombat
    under its thick coat of hair
the soft fur of a koala
the cool skin of a blue-tongued lizard

feeding
a wallaby whose sharp claws
tenderly hold your hand
so that the food
            does not go away too soon

hearing
the swelling maniacal laughter
     of a flock of kookaburras
a pied butcherbird‘s
     unbelievably melodious call
    
you become aware
they are living beings
     not just images on the screen

and the little hairs
    on the back of your neck
    rise
    in shock and awe
of life‘s beauty