Poems by Sharon Bangert Corcoran
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Domestic Takeover
by Sharon Bangert Corcoran
Sharon lives in the San Luis Valley, at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, in the Rio Grande basin, and within sight of the Great Sand Dunes.
Say humans are the first to go—after the wild victims
of habitat loss, starvation, hopeless confusion
about migration routes—what’s left behind I imagine will be
the one-time pets, the pit bulls, Dobermans,
newfies, labs, spaniels, akitas,
who’ve managed to feed on our remains,
left unspayed, intact to couple relentlessly, for
the life of the world will not be deterred,
despite our depredations.
And our cats, all the long- and short-
haired kinds, no one to groom them,
to refill their litter, hissing and spitting,
devolving to feral, finding refuge from canine attacks
in the trees, feeding on whatever birds they can find,
competing with raptors for mice and voles,
kittens carried off in the talons of hawks,
the reversion of all the Ten Thousand Things
to the wild, the Great Way, where alone
there is balance—no more pets,
no more petting, mating, not breeding,
shit and soil—and our culture’s not even
a dream, but a nightmare earth is erasing.
© Sharon Bangert Corcoran
The Last Vulture
by Sharon Bangert Corcoran
From Canary Fall 2017
When the last vulture dies there will be no smell,
No one to notice her solitary rot.
Only the devas will nod in homage
To the ugly bird’s change from corpse-eater
To corpse—no one left bloody enough
To give her sky-burial.
The last vulture will die, perhaps
Of a surfeit, from a sense of duty that bade her
Eat more than she could.
When that last vulture goes to her just deserts,
There may be a straggler crow or hyena
To mop up what’s left, but she
Of the four-foot wingspan, bald head
And blood-red wattle will claim
The humble crown of the bodhisattva
Who left no one and nothing behind.
© Sharon Bangert Corcoran