Poem: Graveyard

 

Graveyard

 

i slink into an ignorable place,

where all-White names

cling to history on buoys of gray stone.

such poor choices for lifting hearts,

gnawed by lichen, tottering and heavy,

barely able to sneer

from their eroded, chiselled pores.

 

why is an extinct passenger pigeon 

perched over a child 153 years old?

no breeze to soothe as i kneel at the next stone,

and peer at the final figment

of someone whose son had impregnated

my great grandmother’s aunt.

 

after a tussle with manners, 

i laugh at all these heavy pimples of sanctimony,

things that only pretended 

to hoard truth in their fleshless throat.

i leap to run, larkful in my swoops,

until the runty hovels and stern crosses give way

to balsam steeples.   

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11/29/23 ... lots  of edits, hopefully improved this poor poem

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180111084953.htm

The passenger pigeon wasn't in trouble prior to Europeans arrival in North America. Nothing suggests that the species was struggling in any way.

Perhaps this isn't that surprising. In the 19th century passenger pigeons were so numerous that there were contests to shoot as many of them as possible during a certain period of time. In one competition, the winner had shot 30 000 birds.