Dave Bonta's poem starts with a big, serious question: what do we do with the other creatures and languages of the world? Almost at once it shows how poorly we answer. People lift their phones to the window and press record, as if filming something were the same as paying attention. The animal details make the point sharper. Dogs may have changed their sounds because we listen so badly, and a bird that can mimic a camera shutter or a chainsaw has absorbed the noise we make.
Then the speaker slips. After wondering how we spend the 99% of life when we aren't listening, he breaks off, apologizes, and asks what the question was. He's been busy collecting photographs of cherubs. The joke is that he has done exactly what he was criticizing: wandered off into something pretty. The ending, with voices telling him to "mind the gap," feels both funny and uneasy. The mood is wry and self-mocking, with a quiet worry underneath about how easily we lose the thread.