High-Voltage Aviary

Safe beyond the chain link fence and barbed wire
loom the jumbled components of the generator.
Like an evil scientist's inventory, or
Soviet dream-house of the future,
the pieces stand, seemingly at random 
though their placement is actually well-planned,
 rods and cones and boxes strung together
with miles of thick cables, and painted 
a uniform non-color.
Above the low whirring rises a cacophony of chirping,
so clamorous I think it must be a recording
looped from loudspeakers to keep the birds away,
like the plastic owls strung beneath the eaves
of an amphitheater. But no, as I look closer, I can see
the bobbing of a head, the flicker of a wing
-birds by the hundreds perched on the wires, the transformers.
With feathers the color of metal, they remain camouflaged
amongst the machinery, performing their symphonies
conducted by some invisible baton
here in the orchestra pit, their electric nest.