If there is an end to earth
there must be wellness in its core:
if seals sleep alone on ice floes

and grapes of oil stay concealed
in rock plates migrated south
when seas pushed continents askew,

if by tipping land’s final point
beavers chew up every beech
and rabbits hired for fun fur

starve in multiplicity gone foul
because neither belongs there.

Nature curls in clouded fear
as the rare peat bog stains
red from Spanghum moss,

once custodian of rotten logs
when glaciers slid down peaks
like silk slips down soft legs

to settle in aquatic hugs with the sea.

Waves clap noisily if prows
break swells , mocking sea birds’ glide
over channels of giant ice tableaus

where albatross with mottled wing
cruise like frisbees as they dive on squid.
Chin-strap penguins porpoise for krill

life savers and hog all the rocks ashore
for their round pebble nests
if they can tote them in their beaks.

If there is an end to earth’s endeavor
it’s in explorers sunken by unseen bergs,
it’s in seal pups bruised in abandonment,

or the man, volcanic black, frostbitten
from yellow kayaks flipping over
in a narrow isthmus’s zero water,

it’s in snow walls calving in tidal crumbs
with the ease of a day old brownie,

it’s in the sailor not forgetting for one
bitter second his boot or orange preserver,
aware death could snap like a brittle twig

if suns shock day with dark moons,

if Gentoos parent no fertile eggs
between their short webbed feet
where life must hatch through a crack.