Beneath shadows
Of Spring Mountains
The rain dove arcs
Across a barren sky,
Its trembling shadow
Rolling listlessly
Above abandoned towns
Of silver and gold,
Whose former occupants
Drift aimlessly,
Tracing invisible contrails
With covetous, translucent fingertips.
 
Sinking in these sandy seas
The rain dove plummets
Beneath the waves;
Fluttering to survive,
Its moistened skin
Glistens breathlessly
Amongst rolling dunes,
Lying down in
Mourning beneath
The throbbing heat
Of our never setting sun.
The Mojave Desert National Preserve (Photo Credit: Rennett Stowe, via Wikimedia Commons).
This poem is inspired by recent research, which has found that heat stress from climate change has caused a significant decline in bird populations across the Mojave Desert.
Last year a team of researchers documented a collapse of bird communities