Sigh

The amazing human brain is a gun pointed at itself.

Two Heads Looking at Each Other by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Sigh

by Bob Hicok¹

Either crickets, frogs, or Republicans
will become extinct here in a few decades
as temps rise. Or bees, apple trees, mosquitoes.
No one knows what will go, just that the going
is coming to a desert nee pasture
or budding flood plane near you.
I’ve told the grubs to pack and head north,
mice to stock up on umbrellas and water,
the Roanoke River to stick out its thumb
and hit the road, but they listen
about as well as we do to ourselves.
I’ve always liked that apocalypse
rhymes with taco chips and believed
nothing’s impossible for us
except walking through walls, levitating,
and changing in fundamental ways.
Having painted ourselves into a corner
in a burning house on a sinking ship
lost at sea, we’re doing what we do best:
waiting for the Super Bowl
to see which ads are funniest.
How does one species
apologize to another: Dear Dung Beetle,
We’ve done you wrong, Dear Maple Tree,
We’ve left you as much snow
and Canada as we could? All suffering
is local and most places
are elsewhere and everyone
is someone else
but you: these are the mountains that
empathy, collective action, and planning
have to climb. The amazing human brain
is a gun pointed at itself.
As much as I love my wife
and green hills and blue skies
and life, I hate this poem,
that I could write it
with our eyes closed.

1. This poem first appeared in Kenyon Review, Volume 41, Number 6, Nov/Dec 2019