Saturday, February 22, 2003

Someone poached a condor. Sometimes

Someone poached a condor.  Sometimes people just piss me off.

The trail unfolds, and I with it;
our goal and purpose, neither knows,
yet on we go, our task implicit -
to struggle, naked and exposed
upon this paltry rocky crust
that hides our seething molten core,
sustained by nothing more than trust
that “yet to come” will best “before.”
Today I heard they found a condor
dead from poacher’s selfish shot;
I felt my spirit torn asunder,
rued my species’ petty lot.
Those pterodactyls are to me
symbolic of a salvaged past
sustained in our captivity -
penultimate, if not the last
of vestiges of what we were.
I dreamed that I might yet succeed
if ancientness could still endure
and soar where nothing could impede
the vast outspreading of its wings
and where its cries could echo back
in canyons where creation clings
and thrives in every hidden crack.
Grotesque and scavenging, that bird
still gave me faith to tread my path;
In airy aeries it endured
our greed and jealousy and wrath.
We’ve come one condor closer now
to ridding ourselves of their gift;
I stand and scan the sky, my brow
upturned and sunburned as I drift,
awaiting guidance, inspiration,
something to compel my stride;
I hunger, tire, grow impatient,
fold my map, go back inside.