Divided as flock.

There once was a bird

Who felt unseen and unheard

To a point of great frustration.

For years, and years he felt

Dismissed by his peers,

And it felt like intense provocation.

He heard muffled chatter

From others in tatters

So he made a brief introduction.

"With this many birds,

why won’t we be heard?"

This indeed was a valid deduction.

As their voices grew louder,

Their tweets garnered attention,

but they were dismissed without hesitation,

By the birds in power

from their ivory tower

Who led the entire bird nation.

This made them irate,

anger burned into hate

and their voices grew louder, and louder.

Over time their flock grew,

and they ousted the few.

In power they felt much prouder.

Together they undid

What they thought was the problem

They fixed it within their own masses.

"All bird kind will benefit,

We're all the same.

Your ideas, ours surpasses."

Together they flew

in formation, so proud.

As a group they felt invincible.

They flew together,

as birds of a feather

Their righteousness seeming convincible.

"Please don't undo,

Everything we've been through,"

The losing birds chirped in vain,

"Enough out of you!

your reign is through!

Your ideas have caused all birds pain!"

With loud words and actions

For the smallest infractions

Dissenting became somewhat scary.

The flock was emboldened,

They wouldn't be scolded,

In their ivory tower: their aerie.

Their voices together,

they followed the tether

Of the loudest birds in front.

What one would do,

The others did, too,

Old standards had now become blunt.

They pushed and they pummeled

they ripped and they tore.

They bullied, and blamed, and scolded.

Expelling the others

By color, by call,

Scared of them, other birds molded.

As the flock grew,

their power did, too.

Their movement now hosting a mob.

One thing led to another,

turning sister and brother

Into enemies; their decency robbed.

Afraid of the conflicts,

and likened to convicts,

Protesting tweets faded to silence.

The mob then declared

Their victory shared.

Not all bruises are made with violence.

The outcasts, the losers,

The different, the silenced,

Not identifying as easily defeated.

Found strength

in each other's differences.

History would not be repeated.

As this new rage grew,

together they flew,

Directly at the mob flock.

The fight for the different

had just begun.

The animal kingdom took stock.

So caught up in the moment

The mob left themselves blind

To the different ways birds could fly.

The rage they created

had thus motivated

the "different" flock to try..

And stop? The mob didn't.

They couldn't afford it.

Too much had already been said.

Their egos, their pride,

their indignance inside,

left them willing to fight until dead.

No birds needed to die that day.

The fight needn’t become an event.

Each bird is unique, important, too.

Despite what makes them different.

A keystone is certainly needed

Without one an arch can't be made.

But remove any stone once completed,

Will cause the whole thing to cascade.

The different birds knew this

And decided that unity

Was better than a pile of rubble.

They attacked the mob

with a bomb called "grace."

It was time to end this trouble.

At first they resisted,

The mob wouldn't budge

Insistent that they were right.

But slowly they realized

That they were outnumbered.

Outmatched. Not able to fight.

So the mob ran off,

Flew away, Retreated.

The different flock then asked them to stop.

"We see that you're hurt,

and angry. Defeated.

But we're in this together. On top."

"Let's learn from each other

and from our mistakes

The future of all birds to come

Should be forged by all of us.

Together.

Not by you, or me, or just some."

Skeptical, cautious,

Nervous, and timid

They agreed after time to reflect.

With time they built

Trust, a relationship,

With empathy and mutual respect.

Not every bird makes lots of noise.

Nor does every bird fly high.

But when birds of all feathers flock together,

Their differences can only be allied.