THE ACTIVIST

for Jeanne

                                         No one so impractical:  you're

                                      my endangered specie  Carolina

                              parakeet pileated woodpecker

                          You'd give those perfect teeth to find a

                    passenger pigeon or spotted owl

               cooing and hooting at the carved feet

          of our bed   And Save the whales!   you shout

     while legal harpoons launch off lowering fleets

The world's autotoxic:  from a sick center

        deserts spread like cancer across its dented surface

          making you right about everything my mimosa

                 my warbler   Still I confess when you enter

                     our room with blazing eyes  biodiversity's

                            a distant star:  global warming's closer