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.

WATER MUSIC

by Judith Steele

“The Murray-Darling river system managed by NSW [New South Wales, Australia] . . . is ‘an ecosystem in crisis’ which is on a path to collapse and urgent reforms are needed to save it, a review has warned.” —The Guardian, July 23, 2019. Photo: Exposed water height markers on the Darling River reveal the depth of the crisis at Wilcannia. Credit: John Janson-Moore in The Conversation.

In my small flat
I hear daily rhythms
of neighbours’ water
as they hear mine.
Our toilets flush torrents,
our showers are waterfalls.
Washing machines gurgle
while kettles whistle.

Water washes things away
in the morning cleansings.
In swimming pools and seas
gives health and relaxation.

In floods and tsunamis
brings death and desolation.
Luckier countries
send neighbourly help.

But if there is no water?
If you live near a river that’s dried
because someone upstream
has diverted it to profit?
Even in a lucky country, it seems
nothing neighbourly remains
between up and down stream.

All over this nation
the pattern repeated
the up and the down,
their distance increasing.

Where are the neighbours?
What can be done
to wash this away?

Judith Steele lives in South Australia Her poetry or prose has most recently been published in the print journal Gobshite Quarterly (Portland OR); and on the website Nine Muses. 

THERE IS GRANDEUR IN THIS VIEW OF LIFE

by Pepper Trail

A tangled bank, near Sandwalk, Charles Darwin’s walking path near his home at Downe House. —Image by GrrlScientist via Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

“Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.” —The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, May 6, 2019

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank,
clothed with many plants of many kinds,
with birds singing in the bushes,
with various insects flitting about,
and with worms crawling through the damp earth,                                                      
and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms
have all been produced by laws acting around us,
and that from so simple a beginning endless forms,
most beautiful and most wonderful,
have been, and are being evolved.
          —Charles Darwin, the final paragraph of The Origin of Species, 1859
                                                                 

It is interesting to contempl te  t ngled b nk,                              
clothed with m ny pl nts of m ny kinds,                                      
w th b rds s ng ng  n the bushes,                                                  
w th v r us  nscts fl tt ng bout,                                                                              
nd w th w rms cr wl ng thr ugh the d mp e rth,                        
nd t  reflect th t these elb rtely c nstructed fr ms,                                
h ve  ll been pr d ced by l ws  cting  r nd  s,                                            
nd th t fr m s  s mplbeg nn ng endless f rms                          
m st  b   t fl  nd m st w nd rf l                                                      
h v   b   n,nd   r   bng   v lv d.          


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.