gone

the scream

of a red-tailed hawk

over the wood

where dozers wait—

my silent cry an echo

the giraffe

earns a place

on the Red List—

Gaia’s ghost

haunts my dreams

stacking stones

to build a cairn . . .

balancing

Earth’s bones,

I awaken to vertigo

fifty years

from discovery

to extinction—

a Pagan reed-warbler

sings in my heart

4% survived

the Permian extinction,

giving rise

to all that lives . . .

and to my flightless hope

~Ribbons 13:1, Winter 2017