If animals were the first metaphor
What will be last?
How is our trajectory so different
from our past?
Will there be any wisdom when we’ve rid the earth
of owls?
Will there be any courage left when lions cease to prowl?
When elephants are long forgotten, lost as hillside sheep
How will we speak of homecoming or memory or belief?
A dove for peace a snake for sin – for
healing, curse and cure
Not tidy like new metaphors,
Sanitized, secure
but try this
Learn something from technology
you can’t find in the eyes
of treefrogs, sloths, or wildebeests,
tigers, even flies
tools will just do what they’re told
give wisdom they’ve been fed
all the world’s machines can only lead where
they’ve been led
Maybe the last metaphor will be
just like the first
maybe we will learn from all creation
we have cursed
As animals were metaphors for life,
all blood and breath
Our last echoing metaphor?
The animal. For death.