DIE-OFF

by Pepper Trail

Ocean Heat Wiped Out Half These Seabirds Around Alaska: About four million common murres were killed by a domino effect of ecosystem changes, and the population is showing no signs of recovery, according to new research... [The researchers] believe it is the largest documented die-off of a single species of wild birds or mammals.  —The New York Times, December 12, 2024. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photos above: A murre colony in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, seen before and after the 2015-16 marine heat wave.

Credit...

The Arctic sea-cliffs are not silent

The birds, the murres, still throng the ledges

Black and white, sharp-eyed, clamorous

Even as half their millions are starved and dead

 

The birds, the murres, still throng the ledges

As we would still fill the New York streets

Even if half our millions were dead, crushed

Beneath weight of heat, a fatality never imagined

 

We would still fill the New York streets

Though senseless with grief, with loneliness

After a heat, a fatality never before imagined

A disaster beyond our comprehension

 

Though senseless with loneliness

The birds still fly, feed, tend their young

Despite a disaster beyond comprehension

Their world changed beyond recognition

 

Here, we would still work, tend our children

There would be no choice, never any choice

But in a world changed beyond recognition

A warning that could no longer be ignored

 

We would have no choice, at last no choice

If the dying took millions from a great city

The warning could then no longer be ignored

But this happened far away, a distant warming sea

 

This dying took millions of only birds

Somewhere far away, a distant warming sea

Just another warning to be ignored

The Arctic cliffs, after all, have not yet fallen silent

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

A POEM IN WHICH I COMPARE MYSELF TO THE PRESIDENT

by Mark Williams

The President plays catch with former New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Mariano Rivera as he greets youth baseball players on the South Lawn of the White House to mark Opening Day for Major League Baseball, Thursday, July 23, 2020, in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images via Chicago Tribune)

The lines are straight, votes streaming in

like a fastball from the hand of Larry Broerman.

That’s me at the plate. I am ten years old,

squaring around to bunt in fear. Notice

how the ball is coming in too fast for me to move.

Watch me catch it with my groin. See 

the coaches and my parents run onto the field

and huddle round my crumpled, writhing form. 

Watch my father unbutton my pants and say, “Breathe.”

 

I don’t care about my team. My only interest

is my stats. I bat in the low .200’s, but if you ask,

I’ll tell you about the double I once hit. Never mind 

I make consistent errors in right field.

Occasionally, I catch one. But for now,

 

behold me as I stand. Gaze upon me 

as I trot toward first base, even as my still-

unbuttoned pants fall from my waist, slide down my legs, 

and drop onto the first base path. Consider 

how the fans go wild. Listen to them cheer

as my short-lived, unaccomplished baseball career

comes to its ignominious end.

Mark Williams's poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, and The American Journal of Poetry. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in The New Verse News, Writers Resist, Poets Reading the News, and Tuck Magazine. His baseball career ended in Evansville, Indiana, where he still lives.