A sonnet to mark the addition of a new ‘Environment‘ category

Once, choirs of birds attuned the trembling leaves
In groves and meadows murmuring with bees,
Sparrows at twilight twittered from their eaves
And petrels mewed above mackerel-filled seas.

Blackbirds serenaded on vaulting domes,
Fieldfares chattered from hedgerow and hawthorn,
The bittern’s boom echoed from bull-rush homes,
And chaffinches chirped amid waving corn.

Dappled falcons rode the steady dawn air,
Skylark minstrels soared in ethereal blue,
The cuckoo chimed from its faraway lair,
Greenwoods filled with the Nightingale’s sweet fugue.

Poets have long lauded nature’s firmament,
Yet it is destroyed, to leave mere lament.