My dogs are gone ...

My dogs are gone and I must watch
As subsidized cats devour birds
Those graceful winged creatures
Those messengers of north and south
Symbols of the coming peace,
Of man's hopes and aspirations.
Feathers and bones attest the nearness
Of the crying shame
To the splendors of a shining dawn.

Symbols are just symbols
We must not be carried away
By the lessons of evil we learned
At the dawning of the day.
The early worms are eaten
By the first birds to arise
Every symbol lives, it seems
And every symbol dies.

We are also symbols
But symbols who read
We learn from what is written
And follow it's lead.
When our symbol fails to thrive
And goes to the cats once more
Our knowledge will still be alive
Or what are symbols for.