On The Death of the Poʻoʻuli.
“Like the canary in the coal mine …our birds are indicators of environmental and human health...they…signal that we are at risk next.”
--John Flicker, National Audubon President.
Well. Close to midnight
on November 26th we lost
another one. The last of
three, maybe the Last.
The other two are missing
in the forest,
many months now.
How generous of Mr. Flicker
to suggest that we can frame
this tragedy as something only
relative to us.
We are the next at risk?
I submit that we might be
already lost. The mine collapsed,
or filled with something deadly
and invisible. We’re like
the miners, scraping hard
at that elusive vein of gold,
meanwhile,
the feathered bodies pile up
in the shaft.
It’s the cart before the horse.
The truth is that we started
dying first. Too dense to realize
the rot begins in us, then
spreads. It’s not
the other way around.
We opened up extinction’s cage,
it did not loose itself. Not
this time. So listen.
Do you hear that?
Me either. Just
the rain.
