The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory by Chris Banks

Author:Chris Banks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2017-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

III

SELFIE WITH TEN THOUSAND THINGS

Trophy Case

The last passenger pigeon, Martha,

dies in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914

as Europe sinks like a mastodon

beneath the mud of battlefields.

What does it feel like not to exist?

I’ve been alive forty years, and will

never see a black carpet of birds

a mile wide, thirty miles in length,

pass over Southwestern Ontario.

An avian eclipse. Evening all afternoon

as Mr. Stevens says. I picture huge

migrating flocks, great phalanxes.

A cathedral of wings flying high over

big cities and towns. Dark miracles.

Who would believe such things today?

Audubon writes of a swarm so large

it takes days to pass over his head.

I keep thinking of little Martha asleep

in a museum, America’s trophy case,

dreaming of extinction, while families

go to church Sundays, sing hymns,

pray to be taken away. I am afraid

of a world where I may cease to be,

which is why I imagine a green hill,

a storm of pigeons passing overhead,

myself a witness to a heavenly host.

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