loss of a song

there are moments in time and space when the world stops. time ceases to exist and the passing of hours into days no longer holds meaning and within that moment nothing and nobody can bother you within that stillness. i'd like to say that these moments offer you such pure bliss that nothing else can be noticed, but it is not the moment i am thinking of. no, the one i am thinking of is a moment of pure grief. a grief so profound that to utter any sound would be sacrilegious, a grief so complete that it encompasses your entire being and swallows you whole, that is the moment i speak of, and while events that took me there could have been a death of a beloved family member, my most profound sense of loss occurred when red-wing blackbirds fell from the sky and when humans successfully cloned the embryo of a sheep. the psychological scars left by those events could easily be the same as experienced by the death of a relative, and yet, for me, these were felt more. i cannot say how, or why, or even what for the convoluted psyche behind this phenomenon, but it is there, and it is a truth about myself that cannot be ignored. perhaps it is the following thoughts that go along with these events that effect me so profoundly: if we can clone sheep, when will we begin to clone humans? and who's to say who's genes get cloned, and who's do not? if we have lost hundreds upon hundreds of red-wing blackbirds will my spring flock return to me? or have we lost part of their song? a song that is known only to a few, and a melody that can only be heard by those willing to sit still and listen, but how many have forgotten the notes? how many will loose the tone, until the song of the red-wing blackbird becomes changed into something unrecognizable and indescribable to their own ears? how much have we lost? will we ever be able to regain what was there? will my flock return? or will the lone early bird of last year now become the only one?