Maintaining the Species by Deborah Burnham

Maintaining the Species

by Deborah Burnham

In the zoo's glass room, two dozen warblers

from New Guinea hop and preen. They're ten percent

of all surviving since the snakes, imported

to eat rats, swallowed birds instead. Here,

the birds are bred and counted, but no one

thinks they can return to their green island;

the snakes fill every tree and hollow.

Their keeper once believed, that with luck and time,

he could revive lost species, could take

the leathered pterodactyl from its peg

in the Museum and slowly breed

a new one. But now, too tired to be

a god, he waits for the warbler's eggs,

going sleepless while they hatch. He's rescued them;

he mourns their cages but knows he'd do the same

for snakes and rats; it's all his job, like a mother

grieving because her children bite and curse each other.

This poem is in one of my favorite anthologies, Urban Nature: Poems about Wildlife in the City, edited by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. I have posted poems from it before on my blog, and return to it often myself, just to read and see what new insights pop out at me. This wonderful poem was first published in Deborah Burnham's 1995 book, Anna and the Steel Mill, from Texas Tech UP.

I like that this poem begins with an image, and then gets to some facts. Most of us know about invasive species, the plants and animals brought from one place to another, sometimes accidentally and sometimes to solve a problem in another place. Of course, the introduced species does not behave, and it ends up creating so many more problems. In the South, kudzu. In many places, foreign fish brought into an area to increase sport fishing are now killing off--directly or indirectly--native fish. There are many other examples from around the world; in this poem, we learn that in New Guinea, snakes were imported to eat rats. Instead, they ate warblers.

The second stanza introduces the zookeeper, a man who once dreamed of reviving lost species. Now, the poet tells us, he is

too tired to be

a god

and must be content saving a species that was almost eradicated.

The tiredness keeping him from being a god turns into the sleeplessness he puts on himself, worrying over the birth of new warblers. (This is one of those brilliant moves poets make--tired leads to foregoing sleep; the words are used here in different ways, but readers will connect them, even subconsciously, in their minds.)

The last 3 1/2 lines give us all kinds of emotions, as if two dozen birds were hopping and preening all around us. (Yes, a callback to the poem's first image.) He has saved this bird, but even in his relief, he is sad. Why? First, because the can only live in cages and can never go home. Second, he knows he would do the same for the very animals that created the circumstances that almost killed all the birds, should they need his help.

Burnham could have ended there, but she provides a marvelous metaphor, comparing his job with all the animals he will always try to save to a human mother who has birthed children but is sad to see them not getting along. It is a surprising ending that really brings what this man is doing to a relatable place, for any reader not already there. After reading that ending, you are kind of forced to re-read the whole poem again.

If you want to read more about a person with too much money and too much time on his hands who wants to bring back dinosaurs, click here. His deal is that it won't be like Jurassic Park. Fine. But can he promise it won't be like kudzu? Why not use the money to save the animals that are here and are vanishing? {SIGH}

See you on Wednesday.