The Icon of Human-induced Extinction Speaks

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After living for millennia in our solitude, we unlearned how to recognize danger 
and fearlessly approached  those of you who landed on our island home.

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You took your clubs to us, and we didn’t know to flee. And then you gave us 
our first  name, Walgvogel,  or “disgusting bird”, to describe dislike for the taste of our flesh.

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The dogs and pigs and rats you left behind ate our eggs that lay in nests
built upon the ground. We became extinct in less than one-hundred years.

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You sometimes call each other by our name, the origin of which is lost. One idea  
is it derived from the sound  of our soft, pigeon-like call—doo-doo.

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Another, that it came from doido, a word in Portuguese meaning ‘stupid’ or ‘crazy’.
But who has not yet learned  to value other species and appreciate the necessary balance 

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diversity ensures. You haven’t even learned to cherish and protect your own. 
And so we ask you, Who’s the stupid species?

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Karen Neuberg is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Pursuit (Kelsay Press) and the chapbook the elephants are asking (Glass Lyre). She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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