He was paralysed for much of his life
Trapped by indecision, he searched for the chimera
Of stability, of security.
He did not commit many crimes
But sometimes, after work,
His hand became covered with poetry.

All that he expected was undone:
His marriages crumbled
His family dispersed
All the expected epics and rhapsodies of his life:
Gone. Cancelled.

In his childhood, he had expected to be a bear
Who played castanets in a circus,
As men jump through rings of fire.
This expectation became a torture device
That shredded his fingers so he could not write

About the lives of migratory birds,
Nor produce maps that showed the routes taken
By these map-less mini-dinosaurs
Birds who possess no return address. 

Now we suffer the spread of contagion.
Now, we suffocate
With congestion
The contagion of people -
Kill off all the other animals -
Animals with soft eyes -
Living in the little wildness remaining,
Separated somewhat from the detritus of Homo Sapiens:
The killer species.