{"id":1178,"date":"2020-07-23T07:30:35","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T06:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2020-08-19T17:25:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T16:25:58","slug":"for-a-coming-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/","title":{"rendered":"Read: For a Coming Extinction<\/span>Pascale Petit<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

For a Coming Extinction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

(after W. S. Merwin)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You whom we have named Charger, Challenger,<\/p>\n

Great King, and Noor the shining one,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

now that you are at the brink of extinction,<\/p>\n

I am writing to those of you<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

who have reached the black groves of the sky,<\/p>\n

where you glide beneath branches of galaxies,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

your fur damasked with constellations,<\/p>\n

tell him who sits at the centre of the mystery,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that we did all we could.<\/p>\n

That we kept some of you alive<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in the prisons we built for you.<\/p>\n

You tigers of Amur and Sumatra,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of Turkey and Iran, Java and Borneo,<\/p>\n

and you \u2013 Royal Bengals, who lingered last.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tell the one who would judge<\/p>\n

that we are innocent of your slaughter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That we kiss each pugmark,<\/p>\n

the water trembling inside<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

as if you had just passed.<\/p>\n

Masters of ambush and camouflage,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

hiding behind astral trees,<\/p>\n

invisible as always,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

when we gaze up at the night,<\/p>\n

when we look lightyears into the past \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

we see your eyes staring down at us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘For a Coming Extinction’ is published exclusively here.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018#ExtinctionRebellion\u2019 was first published in Mslexia<\/i> Jun\/Jul\/Aug 2020, to accompany Kate Simpson\u2019s \u2018Agenda: A Brighter Shade of Green\u2019 feature.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#ExtinctionRebellion<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The day will come when papers<\/p>\n

will only tell leaf-stories<\/p>\n

of blackbirds\u2019 quarrels with sparrows.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Their pages will roll back into trees<\/p>\n

and the front page will be bark.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tabloids will be hundred-winged birds<\/p>\n

singing earth anthems.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll settle into the buttress root of my armchair<\/p>\n

and watch ants swarm<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to text me secrets from the soil<\/p>\n

adding emojis<\/p>\n

of all our lost species.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be surrounded by phones<\/p>\n

that light up with chlorophyll,<\/p>\n

vibrating like workers in their hives \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

an apiary of apps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll touch a vanda orchid<\/p>\n

and it\u2019ll open<\/p>\n

easily as hypertext,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

everyone will hold leaves<\/p>\n

intently as smartphones<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to hear them retweet birdsong<\/p>\n

from archives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is my homepage, where I belong.<\/p>\n

This is my wood wide web,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

my contour map<\/p>\n

with which to navigate<\/p>\n

a new internet \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

rootlets sparking towards rootlets<\/p>\n

underground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Underground<\/p>\n

where resistance is in progress \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

fungal friends working in darkness,<\/p>\n

their windows blacked out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Author’s Note:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018#ExtinctionRebellion\u2019 and \u2018For a Coming Extinction\u2019 will both appear in my eighth collection, Tiger Girl<\/i>, published by Bloodaxe in September 2020. Tiger Girl<\/i> explores my grandmother\u2019s Indian heritage and the fauna and flora of subcontinental jungles. Tiger girl is my grandmother, who brought me up with tales of wild tigers, but she\u2019s also the endangered predators I encountered in Central India, with their threats of poaching, species extinction, and deforestation. In this overpopulated country, so many charismatic megafauna, such as tigers, leopards, elephants and sloth bears, have to inhabit smaller and smaller territories, next to displaced and impoverished forest tribals and local farmers. National parks and tiger reserves like Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh, where I spent most of my time, are like a crucible, where humanity and wildlife struggle for survival.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pascale Petit<\/strong>\u00a0was born in Paris, grew up in France and Wales and lives in Cornwall. Her eighth collection,\u00a0Tiger Girl<\/em>\u00a0(Bloodaxe Books, 2020), is shortlisted for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection, and a poem from the book won the 2020 Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize. Her previous collection,\u00a0Mama Amazonica<\/em>\u00a0(Bloodaxe Books, 2017), won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2018.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  For a Coming Extinction \u00a0 (after W. S. Merwin)     You whom we have named Charger, Challenger, Great King, and Noor the shining one,   now that you are at the brink of extinction, I am writing to those of you   who have reached the black groves of the sky, where you […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from Read: For a Coming Extinction<\/span>Pascale Petit<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[48,107,115,103,116,153],"yoast_head":"\nRead: For a Coming Extinction - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Read: For a Coming Extinction - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  For a Coming Extinction \u00a0 (after W. S. Merwin)     You whom we have named Charger, Challenger, Great King, and Noor the shining one,   now that you are at the brink of extinction, I am writing to those of you   who have reached the black groves of the sky, where you [...]Read More... from Read: For a Coming ExtinctionPascale Petit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/writersrebel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-23T06:30:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-19T16:25:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/228-Pascale-Petit-credit-Brian-Fraser-2018-full-landscape-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"toby\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@XrRebel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@XrRebel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"toby\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"toby\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1605c51fa616ac808b536d7f5d646634\"},\"headline\":\"Read: For a Coming ExtinctionPascale Petit\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-07-23T06:30:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-19T16:25:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/\"},\"wordCount\":589,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"ecopoetry\",\"extinction\",\"Forward Prize\",\"Pascale Petit\",\"tiger\",\"tigers\"],\"articleSection\":[\"read\",\"Uncategorized\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/for-a-coming-extinction\/\",\"name\":\"Read: For a Coming Extinction - 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