News Item

News Item

“Ten young whooping cranes and the bird-like plane they think

  is their mother had flown more than halfway to their winter

  home in Florida when federal regulators stepped in.”

                              —Associated Press, 7 January 2012

It’s not foggy out tonight

but Whooping Cranes

have been grounded.  Even birds

need permission to fly. 

I’ve submitted myself in airports

to being x-rayed, patted down,

but this is the last strange straw. 

Who owns the sky? 

Will thunderstorms next

be permitted only on Thursdays

or tornados limited to unpopulated

areas from nine till five?

What about hurricanes?   

Already we give them names—

alternating  male and female

to be politically correct. 

How could we survive if some

out of step government didn’t

step into our lives (and the lives

of birds) to keep us safe from being

fools or over flown by fowls

whose pilot friend without proper

permit tries to help them learn

the right way home?

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       7 January 2012