Analogue Minds in Digital Heads

I saw a starling
shaken from its tree
by a chimney, wings
not strong enough
to beat away the smoke.

Who is going to fashion
face masks for all
the little animals?
Our hands too busy fumbling
in our greasy tills.

Everything becomes distorted
through the prism of a city:
dawn choruses are traffic jams,
a tree is a council-approved structure
given its own designated rectangle
surrounded by cement,
all the rivers forced underground,
wildflowers only seen as tattoos.

Dogs pavlov each other,
each bark a consolation
in their confined yards.

I too am enclosed in my yard,
the lead of survival salaried to my neck,
a yoke to an unnamed master,
the pinked flesh of field long dead from progress,
now digitalised and uploaded
so we can all fight over the remaining crop.