Beautiful losers

There once was a dove who flew
for centuries in groups
with sound cacophonous.
This most prolific of birds,
numbering perhaps a billion,
amazed those who watched them.
These watchers recorded
in words a chorus
that will never be heard again.
By 1890 these flocks had vanished.
No slate blue males with copper undersides,
hints of purple, females muted, no,
they are no more. For they were a
tasty bird and no one thought
they would ever vanish. But
they did disappear, hunted to extinction,
with only the words of our
ancestors to keep their existence
in our memory.

On the island of Hispaniola
a benevolent man who
kept an inn that welcomed Jesus in-
this man with no care of
impending doom, unable to
be or act in any other way than
to be himself, gave succor and
food to a hungry wolf. The wolf
of course destroyed this man,
this ancestor of anything
humane about the human race.
I have witnessed the truth
of this man’s life in
the words of the dispossessed,
be they King or Douglass or Crazy Horse.
The lives of the conquered are
the only lives where goodness seems
to resound.

When they die they die alone,
and yes, I know there are
nurses working without
combat pay even while fighting
for the lives of the people
who are dying alone and
yes I know there are
doctors on this battlefield
who are writing wills
since they too are dying
alone. This is the
dying without family and
the grieving in quarantine-
when we mourn
we stay at home and
mourn alone.

Disease has no bounds
whether you mine for coal
or wear a crown
death will hunt you down.
Be seduced if you will by
the winners – greed is but
a shallow king. My heart
is owned by
the beautiful loser –
the only muse of the songs
I sing.

The history of the buffalo is repeated in that of the wild pigeon, the extermination of which was inspired by the same motive: the greed of man and the pursuit of the almighty dollar. We lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Our white pine forests and timber lands in general have been wantonly destroyed with no thought for the future. The American people are wasteful. They are just beginning to learn the need of economy in the use of that which Nature has flung at their feet. When one recalls the destruction of that noble animal, the buffalo, frequently for nothing else than so-called sport, or the removal of a robe; when one thinks of the burning of forest trees which took centuries to grow, merely to clear a piece of land to raise crops, it is not to be wondered at that the wild pigeon, insignificant, and not even classed as a game bird, so soon became extinct.

– From “The Passenger Pigeon” by W.B. Mershon 1907

They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will…they took great delight in pleasing us…They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal…Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people…They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.

– Christopher Columbus about the Taino people who were plagued by genocide and disease brought by the Europeans