Charon

 

The astronomers called it a flyby—

that rust-pocked planet careening through 

the solar system to drag the earth from orbit. 

We just called it Charon, ferryman of death.   

 

“Infinitesimal odds: one in a billion at best!” 

harped the scientists, a little defensively, as if 

we held them responsible for governing the stars.

But what good are statistics now that we’re towed 

 

by Charon’s skiff, drifting through the black  

River Styx, sunlight dwindling by the day?  

What good are terms like dynamical instability

when soon our blood will freeze with the seven seas?          

 

For a while, things were not so different— 

we went on staring helplessly at our screens 

while rainforests sank into heaps and tidal waves 

laid waste, littering the seabed with ruins. 

 

I know what you must be thinking: What an awful story    

(that is reader, if you exist, if you discover this chronicle). 

At first we too despaired—four billion years of evolution lost. 

But know this: the dying days also fueled our spirit’s flame.    

 

Despair turned to grief, grief to rapturous release— 

we danced naked on days thin and precious as gold leaf, 

sang hymns to the extinct, odes to the sun’s dying flare,

howled laments with wolves to a vanished moon.

 

Of course, there were the busy bodies— 

governments tunneling colonies for the elect, 

billionaires blasting into space, unable to face their fate,       

doomed flocks of birds migrating in vain around the globe.   

 

But the wisest learned to conform to nature’s mold, 

to fold into dark rhythms, to abide in the nether-loam.

That old philosophers’ adage “Everything in moderation”

turned out dead wrong: it was the extremophiles who lived on,     

 

those microbes seething in earth’s geothermal core.

I’m not one who believes them the dead’s wandering souls,  

but as an acolyte of life, I join others in offering my flesh— 

I descend into the underworld and let them feast. 

 

 

Slough

 

sun thaws cool rock                        

 dormant knot, uncoiling

   rain sprinkles blistered earth            

stiff scales, loosening                                       

mud-cracks brim, arroyos swell   

    a will to surface, rising 

basins flood, sprouts burst         

  scrape on flint, sparking                                        

lightning snaps, thunder rattles   

                     fissured skin, widening               

     rivers vein withered roots                

from inside out, writhing                                  

lupine molts cobalt blooms    

          fresh diamonds, glistening

sweet scents flush burrows  

warm blood, skittering                                    

seed-feast, fruit-gorge     

             fangs agape, sinking      

 sands absorb         

           skin, dissolving                                

          cloud wisps  

                    slithering  

          through

          clear              

             sky

 

 

Internal Combustion of an Anthropologist: a case study  

Conclusion: 

 

Man is distinguished by his singular mastery over the elements.

When hominids first conjured fire out of pyrite

it marked a cosmically significant event

the beginning of an inevitable reign

of planetary dominance

(Smith et al).

 

Discussion:

 

A legion of “emerging” scholars assail my inbox daily 

with objections to the foundational Homo-pyro Hypothesis.

 

They insist that chimps are ant-fishing, spear-making, nut crackers, 

that dolphin matriarchs pass down the art of sea sponge hunting, 

that elephants wield fly swatters, that octopuses wear shell masks,

that alligators lure herons with faux nests balanced on their heads.  

 

My defense against this drumfire of dubious examples?

They do not hold a candle to a species of fire-setting mammal.    

 

Observations: 

 

A most insidious hypothesis has spread into our field: 

according to native peoples of the Australian Bush 

black kites intentionally set fire to flush out prey.  

 

On the insistence of colleagues who confirm Aboriginal accounts     

I travel to the Bush to suffocate the myth with science.  

Kites circle the perimeter. A purely mechanical behavior. 

   

The fires rage. Gusts up to 70 knots. The sky an infernal pall. 

The birds dip like tongs to seize terror-stricken rodents. 

The work of fire hawks, some say. Still, nothing concrete. 

 

Then, the oddest thing: in a flash two deft talons seize    

a burning stick and wink off into the night like a shooting star. 

A way off the flickering stick falls. The bush bursts into flames.           

 

Questions: 

 

I saw it. I cannot believe it. I saw it. 

 

My worldview lies in ruins—

dogma incinerated in a furnace doubt  

foundation crumbled by questions    

 

a dream kindles in the ash  

 

on the horizon 

a bird soars towards me 

beating flame-tipped wings  

 

it holds a burning branch 

and says with yellow eyes 

The world thirsts for fire.