Endangered Ghazal with Telegram and Natural World
How many sidewalks with hardly a crack stop
grasses in their tracks, how many reefs along wrecks stop
recovering once bleached. How many sadnesses indicate
true north. How many creatures dying back stop
feeding and lie still. Water moving against
its reflection-skin, shifting a beached humpback. Stop-
signed old avenues exchange heaves. Freezing points
breathe and hurricanes crush and those with kickbacks stop
stopping it. Tornado sirens as light flecks mold-like along
the sill, as gull spines diamonded through the dark’s stop-
per. Who will save the wolf pack or the shark attack
from the megalomaniac or the smokestack. Stop.
Nature was made to be ransacked. Stop
thinking of this as a setback. Stop
feeling like this is a rat trap or sidetrack or stop-
gap, until everything including Jennifers grows scarce
and everyones are buried and the world doesn’t feel the lack. Stop.
Bushwhack back through to common sense.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2022)