The Race To Catch The Last Fish Poem by Percy Dovetonsils

I want to thank those who
for whatever reason
have not cut down
the last tree
in what had been
their forests,
those who
for whatever reason
have not shot
their last tiger
wolf, leopard, grizzly,
those who
have not traveled
from their
Hummer showrooms
in Dallas
to kill the last
polar bear,
gaffe the last
blue fin tuna,
make a livingroom rug
of the last
unicorn.
Most of all
I want to thank
those Tasmanians
who resist the urge
to expunge
the last Tasmanian devil
from the face of the Earth,
those Oregonians and Washingtonians
who did not
construct the endless
hydroelectric dams
which have reduced
the once mighty
Columbia River salmon run
to an exhausted school
of wretched refugees.
I want to thank them
for not being among those
who ground up fish
beyond number
in turbine generators
while pretending to the world
that fish ladders
would save
the threatened species.
To those who have not
or will not
raze
the last exotic Indonesian hardwoods
to make lawn furniture
I also
extend
my heartfelt thanks.
And to those who today
live in barren manscapes
stripped of all flora and fauna
I say thank you
for being
living cautionary tales
and for giving us a taste
of what the future
everywhere holds
unless we become
other than what we are
which is a species
boundlessly metastasizing,
devouring every other species
of any grace or interest,
every other species
which isn’t a weed,
every other species
capable of stirring
awe and wonder
at a beauty and grandeur
greater than our
ravenous selves.
Thank you to those
who bravely live by
dead seas,
empty oceans,
silent forests
which are no more,
anaerobic lakes,
and flaming Cuyahogas.
Thank you to those who endure
mornings without songbirds,
evenings without
the riveting of frogs,
noons absent of
hummingbirds and butterflies,
nights without
leatherbacks
crawling out of the sea
to lay their eggs
in the moonlit sand.
Thanks to those fisherman
who no longer have reason
to once more sail out
to the Grand Banks
to catch the inexhaustible billions
of cod
which are no more.
Thanks,
especially,
to the ghost of the
great ivory-billed woodpecker
which occasionally
allows itself
to be blurrily photographed
in the last remnant
of the Great Dismal Swamp
as a reminder
to us all
of what we have
striven to become
since the first man
took stone in hand
and
revenged himself
on whatever
he could.