Bestiary for the End Times

Eastern Cougar (New England and Mid-Atlantic)
            For Paul Celan, killed by the holocaust, and Paul Blackburn, by cancer
 
the final curtain
    for the cougar
has fallen now
in the year 2018
though for him it was perhaps
the year 2 million and whatever whatever
 
the genus puma
    subspecies cougar
have you encountered one?
neither have I
 
so it goes
 
the uncertainty of survival
    for the cougar
has become certain
    but for the people –
those of us left behind –
the cougar leaves
a certain set of questions
 
as many as 10,000 eastern cougars
have been sighted
(by human people)
since the 1960’s, so, maybe?
 
    on the matter of
the cougar’s end
the federal government
of canada
has taken no position
 
some cougars have been seen
      as far east as
new hampshire but are believed
to have been western (not eastern)
 
one western cougar
after being removed from
the federal endangered species list
wandered from as far away
as the Black Hills of South Dakota
- paha sapa -
before meeting her end
under the screaming wheels of
an SUV in the suburbs of Connecticut
 
a cat’s going to go
      where a cat wants to go
one biologist sd.