To the once most frequent bird in the world Poem by Silke Scheuermann

To be the last one of a kind
what a strange task
When you used to have different ideas
of narrowness and width Quite different
from the granny flat in the zoo of Cincinnati
Martha last migratory dove in the world
what a dilemma that you were so tasty
In 1855 just one delicatessen wholesaler
sold eighteen thousand
of you to hungry New Yorkers
When you in your aviary
miss the real flights
remember your flocks
thousands of metres wide
or the breeding grounds
fifty times six kilometres How you
when the first European
emigrants came to America
darkened the sky How you made them
stand for hours in darkness to do their astonished calculations
Remember the time before
the methods of killing and the railway network
A few wild animals
threatened you

Translated by Hans-Christian Oeser & Gabriel Rosenstock