Martha
by Eric Robertson
A person could feel small looking at those great big flocks. When I was a boy in the 1850s they flew over for hours. A mile wide and a hundred miles long. The jungle got right in yer veins just watchin' 'em. It was a damn sight. Evenin'-like. The whole sun gone. Just a little light around the edges.
And they only knew how to mate in great numbers. They couldn't get their juices up if they weren’t smellin' the air full of themselves for a hundred miles. That was their problem. There couldn’t ever a been an Adam and Eve. God must have thrown a batch of 'em down already winged.
Talk about wilderness. They were in the trees ever'where and they had so many nests they looked like berries on a bush. Those little eggs fed every crow and fox in the forest. Weren't enough natural enemies to eat 'em all. The crow and fox started having dinner together like they weren't natural born enemies themself. And those ladies in the trees just kept laying eggs one after another.
The hunters would build a campfire beneath 'em. Soak grain in sourmash for 'em to eat and then catch 'em floppin around drunk. Then they'd pinch there little heads between fingers like a farmer goin' down a row pinchin' potato bugs.
But now there gone. This year, 1914, has seen the last. Now I wish I could see those black clouds that went on forever. Now there's too much sun. The skies too lonely. All that lights on us with no blessed relief. We're naked now with out 'em. They was the clothing. More'n just a feather for a ladies hat.
The poor folk ate 'em… and the hogs. And some men made millions off 'em. Men who paid for colleges and had universities named after themselves. But all they could do was name the last pigeon Martha, after the first "first lady". When it was too late, that was the best they could do to relieve their conscious. As if that last girl was not just a walking zombie that didn't have more use with this world than an eraser at the end of a pencil. Seems like they could have come up with something better. What's a good name for the last lady? Enid? Nevermore?
When I was a boy we sang "A Friend of the Earth is a Friend to Me". I guess there not singin' that song in school anymore.
Hear that chuggin' off in the distance? That's the factory. Hiding the sun with all that black smoke. Kind of like the passenger pigeons. Except the air was good with the passenger pigeons. A billion wings all flappin' at once.
A person could feel small looking at those great big flocks. When I was a boy in the 1850s they flew over for hours. A mile wide and a hundred miles long. The jungle got right in yer veins just watchin' 'em. It was a damn sight. Evenin'-like. The whole sun gone. Just a little light around the edges.
And they only knew how to mate in great numbers. They couldn't get their juices up if they weren’t smellin' the air full of themselves for a hundred miles. That was their problem. There couldn’t ever a been an Adam and Eve. God must have thrown a batch of 'em down already winged.
Talk about wilderness. They were in the trees ever'where and they had so many nests they looked like berries on a bush. Those little eggs fed every crow and fox in the forest. Weren't enough natural enemies to eat 'em all. The crow and fox started having dinner together like they weren't natural born enemies themself. And those ladies in the trees just kept laying eggs one after another.
The hunters would build a campfire beneath 'em. Soak grain in sourmash for 'em to eat and then catch 'em floppin around drunk. Then they'd pinch there little heads between fingers like a farmer goin' down a row pinchin' potato bugs.
But now there gone. This year, 1914, has seen the last. Now I wish I could see those black clouds that went on forever. Now there's too much sun. The skies too lonely. All that lights on us with no blessed relief. We're naked now with out 'em. They was the clothing. More'n just a feather for a ladies hat.
The poor folk ate 'em… and the hogs. And some men made millions off 'em. Men who paid for colleges and had universities named after themselves. But all they could do was name the last pigeon Martha, after the first "first lady". When it was too late, that was the best they could do to relieve their conscious. As if that last girl was not just a walking zombie that didn't have more use with this world than an eraser at the end of a pencil. Seems like they could have come up with something better. What's a good name for the last lady? Enid? Nevermore?
When I was a boy we sang "A Friend of the Earth is a Friend to Me". I guess there not singin' that song in school anymore.
Hear that chuggin' off in the distance? That's the factory. Hiding the sun with all that black smoke. Kind of like the passenger pigeons. Except the air was good with the passenger pigeons. A billion wings all flappin' at once.
Labels: Going Going Gone
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