Alan: “Satao, a bull elephant who lived in the arid plains northwest of Mombasa, had tusks so long that when he walked they nearly scraped the ground... he was one of the largest elephants in Africa. ... In February, Satao was wounded by poisoned arrows. ... Satao recovered, only to be hit again, in May. This time the arrow pierced his left flank, and he died. Poachers cut off his tusks, leaving his face so mutilated that it took Kenyan authorities ten days to confirm his identity.” (Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, July 7 & 14, 2014, p.31)
The Great Beasts
The last of the great beasts was an elephant.
The last of the great beasts was a whale.
The last great beast was a polar bear.
It was a brown bear.
The last of the great beasts was a rhino.
It was a shark.
An orangutan.
A gorilla.
The last of the great beasts was a timber wolf.
The last was a crocodile.
It was a giraffe.
A hippo.
It was a bison.
A tiger.
A condor.
A leopard.
A sturgeon.
The last of the great beasts was a dolphin.
The last great beast was a lion.
The last of the great beasts was a hyena.
It was a musk ox.
The last great beast was an eagle.
The last great beast was an emperor penguin.
The last great beast was a leopard seal.
An elephant seal.
It was a sea lion.
The last of the great beasts was a chimpanzee.
The last great beast was an oryx.
The last great beast was a Bactrian camel.
It was a Komodo dragon.
The last great beast was a dugong.
A manatee.
The last of the great beasts was an albatross.
It was a jaguar.
The last was a great auk.
The last great beast was a moa.
The last was a Tasmanian devil.
A passenger pigeon named Martha.
It was an Arctic curlew.
The last great beast was a dire wolf.
The last of the great beasts was an Irish elk.
The last was a mastodon.
A wooly mammoth.
It was a giant sloth.
A saber-tooth tiger.
The last great beast was a cave bear.
The last of the great beasts was a man,
standing there alone.
The last of the great beasts was greed.
It was fear.
The last great beast was delusion.
The last of the great beasts
was the first great beast.
The first great beast was Death.
Nancy: There are baby books – you know the kind, pink and blue ribbons, vital statistics – and then sometimes there are empty pages.
So Few Pages In The Book Of You
A night at the ballet. Sunday afternoon
at the park, a sprig of lilac
and a Dayboat to Provincetown.
Seashell, small bottle of sand.
Packed bag.
We climbed on the train.
Changed in Chicago.
We didn't see the Mississippi.
Crossed in the night. After that
the land wavered in the heat.
I was afraid of the cattle stops
and the water tanks, and I'm afraid
that I moaned to you.
Stopped eating. Moaned.
Forgot that it was my job
to give you memories.
Empty pages.
Look, I whispered, look.
Mountains. Clouds and somewhere
rain falling.
Outside the window the rain
left pale fading marks on the dry soil.
I wrote lightning.
The last word in the book of you.
Lightning in the mountains.
Lightning.
“The Great Beasts” is from Annals Of The Nearer Soon, a work in progress.
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