Continuing the animal theme for the last few days of NaPoWriMo, I give you a poem centering on birds which went extinct in Britain more than a century ago, but were successfully reintroduced on islands such as Mull in the Inner Hebrides.
Watchmen of Mull
They sat on the clifftops
surveying the Firth of Lorn
in the days when the raptors
ruled the skies above the isles.
The sea eagles fished alongside
the humans on their vessels.
Myths of their viciousness
spread across the isles like rot,
and so did the hunters and trappers.
They purged the land for miles
of the kings and queens of the air,
until their sympathetic descendants
facilitated the eagles' restoration
to their old thrones on the cliffs.
Now the eagles soar over Mull,
snatching fish from the bay,
following their fishermen friends,
raising chicks in the old pines
and watching over their kingdom
should the old threats rear their heads.
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