the rain starts
then pummels
birds descend from their roosts in trees
they’d already abandoned feeders, baths, meadows and prairies
now queuing one by one
down into the bramble
grounding themselves
without air traffic controller directives and guidance
from the torrent of wind and rain
and possibly, hail

// how have i never noticed this procession/
this choreographed safety dance to firmament //

those manicured landscapes, lawns, shrubs
the “smithification” & “kleinschmidtification”
the topiarification,
the modernization,
the suburbanization,
then re-gentrification
— those perfectly clean lines of uniformity
and complicity,
their kempt lawns
and unbroken windows-theory obedience
to property values
none of that offers true shelter

---

nor do the hospitals, schools, mosques, designated safe zones, “humanitarian” airdrops on beaches ///

there is nothing in this natural or built World that escapes comparison to Gaza, right now,

not even native or migratory bird behavior observed during storms in Bucolia, America

---

so, let it all go to bramble
so, let us all go in to the bramble

for cover
for warmth
for survival

for grounding,

/these people been walking on /our/ air for too fucking long/

let us plot our resistance
in the bramble, in the woods, in the caves, in the jungle, in the deserts, in the foothills, in the mountains

and, where we find no nature left,

— in the valleys of landfill berms and along the highway sound barriers — that they engineered, to insulate themselves from us, all

let us meet under viaducts, in the aqueducts and beneath the overpasses,

under the bridges and in the stairwells of the projects and slumlord “rental income” buildings

in the parks and alleys, along the railroad tracks and in the subways

at 3:33 a.m.

where they refuse to go

because they are so preoccupied and comfortable

and believe they are protected and immune

from it all