The Island | Nels Hanson

I don’t know where the secret island is.
You’re my friend but I wouldn’t tell you
if I knew. Human words waft and spread

a rumor across high Himalayas, all seven
oceans and continents. You ask are there
lush valleys, where thousands graze or test

ripening fruit, with carnivores who’ve lost
their taste for blood? Or only pairs of each,
like those caught few pushed up the ramp

as rain fell and rising waters lifted Noah’s
barn-like boat, to a sunlit peak arched by
perfect rainbow, when cruel deluge failed

to drown the Earth? That blackest raven
bringing nothing and white dove returned
with an olive’s sprig? No, only the Dodo

who unwisely approached and greeted man,
Wooly Mammoth, pigeons, the Passenger,
Golden Toad, Quagga unlucky zebra, Bubal

Hartebeest, Caribbean Monk Seal, Tecopa
Pupfish, Sea Mink, Pyrenean Ibex, Baiji
White Dolphin and the striped Thylacine,  

Tasmanian Tiger, wolf-like and final one
pacing square cage in newsreel of 1930s
German zoo. It wasn’t last but pretended

so to shield our eyes from Eden of animals
done with us, unknown to maps, far island
never spied by ark or whaler, a lost caravel.

Indian Review | Author | Nels Hanson poems on Indian Review | Indian Literature & Poetry

Indian Review | Author | Nels Hanson poems on Indian Review | Indian Literature & Poetry