Smoke in the Sails

Shad Hasley

Common Era, the year Two-thousand and eight:

Tribe unknown is scoped in the high jungle,
the Eastern Andes. The men are painted,
bodies bright like demons, menacing God
a massive whirring wasp?
with pointy sticks.
The crew excited high above, flash teeth
and lights, then chop-chop urgently away.
Gas is not as cheap as stored pixels.
The resulting pics posted on the web
recall that clip of Sasquatch, striding right,
aired three-hundred-sixty times a damned year
on “Discovery Channel,” still somehow
intriguing through absurdity.

Three Gorges Dam pumps in Olympic time.
Behemoth river slakes thirst of billions,
powers stoves, fries fish, feeds for a day.
As Sichuan shakes, and the grade schools collapse,
the Yangtze dolphin now extinct,
or so scientists think.
So long Baiji.

Smoke in the sails,
wing-and-wing on a mountain lake man-made.
Over a thousand wild places ablaze
in California. From orbit the state
resembles a neon bordered bar-sign
selling surfeit
but for the spidery gray smear spilling
over the blue, the mottled greens
and the orange oscillating firelight.
I watch ospreys grown fat on farmed fish
ply reservoir waters with stinging eyes.
Sun distorted, fades to brown
before its disappearance far
above horizon.