Extinction - The Speech of Artemis

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An extract from my epic poem The Way of Trilobites, available on Amazon. See PS classified.

I cannot curse as others can,
I remedy, not hate.
Too well I know that beast in Man
That ever forms their fate.
Didst once we think that reason made
The mortal struggle cease or fade?
So lonesome were we that we sought
To give to dust that weapon, thought?
O, happy gods, who at our ease
May tend to treasures as we please!
Nor never die from hunger’s pain
Nor scratch from others every gain.
Yet mortals, must they struggle well!
Their lesser fighters long since fell.
And if they reason, truth to tell,
‘Tis but to better kill or quell.
Ever trying, ever dying,
Well I know these reasoned beasts!
Nor can I fault their violent vying,
Though they crash through sacred feasts.
And yet I weep, as you do too,
For all that walked or grew or flew
Whose fabled lineage now is through
Through deeds these reasoned mortals do.
The thoughts of gods, the thoughts of men shall take.
So well does reason reason’s ruin make!
And if we speak of reason’s ruin,
Of deserts formed, and forests strewn,
Shall we recall our friends now gone
Whose twilight were these mortals’ dawn?
Those giants whom we rode upon,
The mammoth and the mastodon.
The giant bears, the giant sloth,
Their deaths and others wrought our wroth.
The Irish elk, the rhino furred,
The great marsupials and that bird
Of giant measure, now unheard.
So many passing, we inured
Now watch extinction without word.
How many more before we’ve stirred?
And through the coursing, swirling nights
Go they the way of trilobites.
These species fell to reason’s might:
We gave one beast too sharp a bite.
And thoughtless reason spreads its blight,
As Heaven’s light they use to fight.
So many species slip from sight!
And if these species reached their span
Then add one more, mephitic Man!
I can not hate, I understand.
And yet these mortals must be banned.

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