Extinct Voices

I am the shadow that skims the wind, I am the cry unheard,
I’m fur and feather, scale and vine, I’m every silenced word.
You built your cities, cut your tracks, you named the land your own,
But I was here long centuries deep before your kind had grown.

I was the thylacine’s striped flank, I prowled in moonlit grace,
I vanished in the keeper’s gaze, behind the cage’s space.
I paced and pined, a ghost in bars, while watchers came to stare,
And when I died, the world moved on like I was never there.

I was the call of the Paradise Parrot, bright as bushfire’s hue,
Who nested low where cattle graze and grass no longer grew.
My mate and I once flew through flame, through fig and boxwood tree,
But ploughs turned earth and poisoned creeks, and left no home for me.

The hunters came for sport and trade, the fires cleared the land,
And men in coats wrote laws too late with pens in helpless hands.
I lingered last in fading songs the old folk barely knew,
But songs can’t raise what’s now sleeps near where the grasses grew.

I am the coral reef’s tremble, I am the dryland’s moan,
I am the northern bettong’s trail through roots and scrub and stone.
I was the voice within the tide, the flicker in the stream,
Now bleached and bare, my world erodes like memory from a dream.

Toadlets once sang from creeks at dusk with voices loud and pure,
Now silence haunts the banks at night, too final to endure.
The golden toad, the gastric frog, the green and black cascade,
Their tiny hearts went still one year when balance failed and swayed.

I was the blossom on the cliff, the seed that fed the sky,
But chainsaws tore my branches down and left me there to die.
I was the bridal flower on Norfolk Island, rooted high and steep,
Until a careless footstep crushed the soil where I sleep.

I whispered in the grasses tall, the pigface near the shore,
But roads and crops and mining blasts erased what came before.
The desert blooms still mourn my kin, the tea trees seem to grieve,
For every stem and root and sprout you killed but did not leave.

We were the night’s companions once, we drummed and chirped and flew,
We crept through bark, we drank from leaves, we danced in morning dew.
But logging took our hollow homes, and cats took all the rest,
And foxes followed close behind and raided every nest.

The numbat’s stripes are seldom seen, the Leadbeater’s grow rare,
And what remains must fight each hour for just a breath of air.
The smoky mouse, the dunnart small, the swift parrot in flight,
All whisper now in trembling tones, not bold enough for light.

I am the tinker frog in drought, where creek-beds cracked and dried,
My river withered in the sun, no place for me to hide.
And though I linger still in parts, in pockets, barely known,
I feel extinction’s fingers brush the marrow of my bone.

You mine my streams, you dam my flow, you take and seldom give,
But do not lie and say you love the things you see but won’t let live.
Your fences mark the stolen land, your guns keep watch and ward,
But life is not a thing to own, it’s not a prize or sword.

And even still, there now remains a flicker in the gloom,
A hope that stirs in children’s hearts before the world can loom.
I’ve seen them plant the trees again, I’ve felt the soil turned kind,
I’ve heard their voices rise with mine, those few I left behind.

I am the breath in sacred smoke, the dreamtime’s living lore,
I am the feather in the pouch, the claw print on the shore.
The Elders walk with steps I knew, they speak my name in fire,
Their corroborees recall my face with truth that does not tire.

Kindly listen, child, to rustling grass, it may be me you hear,
A ringtail gliding branch to branch, a cry too faint and near.
And pause before you burn or build or cast your stone in stream,
For what you kill will not come back, except within your dream.

A world once full of fur and fang now whispers in regret,
But you can change what time would end, you are not finished yet.
Protect the life that clings and hopes through drought and flood and flame,
Or one day soon the final voice will call out your own name.

I am the silence that speaks aloud, the echo in the dust,
The feather fallen in the wind, the bone entombed in the crust.
I do not hate, I do not judge, but I will not forgive,
Unless you learn from all I lost, and help the wild to live.

For every creature, tree, and stream that vanished with a cry,
I sing this ballad from the brink, too wild, too proud to die.
Remember me in every trail, in every bark and wing,
I am extinct, yet through your hands, I rise again, and sing.

Also by Roger Chao:

The Dance of Pollinators

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