If I be anyone in this life

let me be a messenger

let me write beauty on the sky

let me write a love letter

so wide and deep and long

that it turns day to night

forcing men and women to look up.

Let me write a reminder of what is great and what is small

and if my being is not enough,

if my death is the only reminder of man’s power to take life

let me die; let this love letter

exist in memory, born of experience

Poem written by Megan Hollingsworth/ ex·tinc·tion wit·ness in 2014 and dedicated to the passenger pigeon on the centenary of its extinction. The image is a still from Martha’s Farewell,  a film tribute to Martha by Megan, also in 2014.