What do the disappearing know?

Can they change fast enough
with the few genes they have left
to make themselves more seen
in the sand? Will they learn that
what hides them
has become a clever enemy?

Can we read answers in their eyes
as they lead us away from their nests, piping
between flat beach stones piping
the same smooth recorder notes they piped
when no human threat
smashed their last eggs?

Do they
in their few numbers
hide until time
brings them a safe lover
or a place where their future won’t be shattered?

What can they know of a final going?

Will they continue to try
to guide us away
because it’s the only way they know how?

As if any of us, any fox or truck or boisterous dog could hear that song,
that piper in its low haunt
the possible dirge
of an almost invisible bird.