Bill Griffin

Extinction

Not nearly so many red finches
this year as last and why
         should that matter? Earth pulls
         a cloak around her shoulders,
salt water licks her knee,
Monday morning ground
         frozen hard then Tuesday snow
         melts as it falls—but each morning
count on light to rise and later
fall, each dark moment
         in its struggle
         to become must
                                            perish
as the next moment catches breath.

         My father proclaims he will live
         to one hundred therefore five more years
         I will watch him struggle

to rise from the couch, crooked
no cane can straighten; outside the window
         winter curl of greenbrier,
         mist condensing at the bend,
a drop gathers and gathers to itself
all the experience of water
         before it falls into earth
         and the next drop swells;
perhaps my father has heard it,
hears it now, a call unanswered
         from cover of canebrake
         and dark water, diminishing
                                                           trill
of the last Bachman’s warbler.

Bill Griffin: I live in the foothills of North Carolina and have become a full time naturalist since retiring as a small town family physician. In my poetry, blog, and essays I gravitate toward themes of ecology, community, and the search for meaning. One tenet of being a naturalist is to share—I guide nature hikes throughout the year and I have completed over thirty annual breeding bird inventories for Cornell Ornithology and the US Geologic Survey. I feature Southern poets at my weekly blog Verse & Image—GriffinPoetry.com—with special posts throughout April to celebrate Earth Day. Of my many publications, I am most proud of the ecopoetry collection Snake Den Ridge, a Bestiary, set in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and illustrated by my spouse, Linda French Griffin.