Go On

News: another novel virus

Has now reached jackrabbits as well.

Should the jackrabbits be worried?

Every jackrabbit for itself.

Viruses rarely extirpate

Entire species, while species can

Create havoc for each other,

All part of life’s great unplanned plan.

Our own, ultra-generalist,

Uniquely havoc-prone species

Universally infected

With foaming-at-the-mouth disease

Has extirpated so many

Other ways of carrying on

We’re prone to looking around us

To ask, Where has everyone gone?

A terrible outbreak, we are.

But will culture kill everything?

I’m not even sure we can kill

All our selves. Living likes living,

I say when I pass jackrabbits

On these desert waysides at dawn.

They swerve, and I swerve in my car.

Not too sick, yet? Good luck! Go on!