Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

The Dodo of Mauritius -
a large, flightless dove with crooked bill
and diamond eye -
would walk right up to a Portuguese adventurer,
innocent and curious,
who’d aim and fire,
and SPLAT, that was that.

Sixteen hundred and eighty,
extinguished, snuffed out, done for,
lost for ever, gone for good.

Requiem.

Swallow-tail,
Pearly mussel,
Curlew;

Grey Bat,
Peregrine,
Bobcat;

Musk Deer,
Grey Wolf,
Blue Whale;

Florida Panther,
Leopard,
Golden Parakeet;

Caribbean Monk Seal,
Humpback Whale,
Grizzly Bear,
and the Brown Wolf of the Cascade Mountains.

All, all, from the Barred Bandicoot to the Elephant of Asia,
from the Modest Rail to the Mighty Aurochs,
moved away from the shelter of the Ark
into the wide waters of death, the dove-less dark..

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Moho nobilis, jet-black Honeyeaters,
came, if you mimicked their call:
ow, owow, owow, ow;
haloed in pollen from Hawaiian Ohio bushes,
caught and killed for their long yellow plumes,
for ornaments, for capes, for fantastical headgear;
and in nineteen hundred and thirty-four,
extinguished, vanished, wiped out, done for,
and that, again, was that.

Requiem.

Panthera Tigris Balica,
smallest of all tigers,
tawny and clear white, easy in your limbs,
retreating to the mountains near the sea,
bequeathing your loose and rippling skin
for hides and artefacts,
your bones to be ground for medicinal concoctions;
the last of you shot at Sumbar Kima,
Western Bali, 27th September 1937,
and you’ve gone for ever
into deep blackness, imploded, like a star.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Homo Habilis, Neanderthalensis,
Homo Erectus, Mono Sapiens;
Small-jawed, large-brained (reputedly),
hi-pedal in stance and gait -
‘how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty,
in form, in moving, how express and admirable’,
poised to follow the mammals, the birds,
insects, reptiles, fish, amphibians
in their shapes and their colours,
their temperaments and their glorious names
into the windless, dreamfire nightvoid,
into the sable, cold, the starless deep.

To follow the Mysterious Starling,
the Indefatigable Rice Rat,
the curve-horned Blue Buck
of the Cape Veldt, whose skin
the horny-handed settlers said
was like a fine blue velvet;
the Vinous-Tinted Blackbird,
the Barbary Lion,
the Toolache Wallaby
and the Wild Ox;
the Ash Meadows Killifish,
the Laughing Owls,
the Steller’s Sea-Cow,
the Eskimo Curlew
and Captain McClear’s Rat.

ne absorbeat eis tartarus
ne cadunt in obscurum;
nor allow the dark lake to swallow them
nor darkness to enshroud them;

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and let light perpetual shine upon then.