Canaries were used in coal mines as an early detection system for toxic gasses. Canaries are particularly susceptible to methane and carbon monoxide. Canaries will get sick or die before it affects humans, miners. Still, the miners have to respect the vulnerability of the canaries, or they will suffer a similar fate.
This poem plays with the notion that the most vulnerable among us serve as early warning signs of our common, shared fate. I mourn the fact that even when we possess such knowledge, we often only take the time and effort to be glad that we aren’t the vulnerable one at that given moment. This poem also includes a tip of the hat to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Canary in a Coal Mine
Don’t flip
The bird
Singing that cagey song
Living afar
Deeper than just
Six feet under
A mist
That not sow
Gentle rock
Of ages
From seeing
The sun
Burning nigh
And wading for what
Life is
A gas
In visibility
No smell attest
As time in memorial
The bird flips off
And still
However unschooled
A miner gratitude
That he’s not
A canary
In what is
Mine
