"ibex" poems
Ötzi
Even in my long sleep,
I dreamed of this.
A waking by strangers
A grasping of my wrist
And I wrench it back from them!
My dreams beneath the ice
Were warm, in summer vales,
Where children played
Under my watch, old but hale.
An easy thing, my guard was then.
I tend sore limbs as supper warms,
And aching joints inflamed,
And muscles tough as ibex horn;
For a while I can be lame.
And see my copper ax in the red-gold flame.
I dream of how it came to me,
After vanquishing a headsman.
Intruders fell before me!
And I earned this talisman.
Weapon, scepter, power of my clan!
Then I was sent across the mountain,
A lone journey I knew well.
To trade with kinsmen in a the northern glen,
With gifts, arrow shafts and tales to tell,
Never guessing betrayal that walked behind.
Alone upon the highest peak
I ate my last meal by the fire.
To me the gods seemed trying to speak,
As men I knew climbed higher.
We had words, but they were my kin!
In my long sleep I wonder why
These false friends turned to hate.
I’d watched over them, yet they cried
That my rule was done, and it was too late,
So I turned from them and faced my doom.
I crossed the last protruding rock
And now felt safe from them.
But then a blow, beneath my heart: a shock!
I fell in a soft, snowy glen,
And then a dull pain in my skull…and black.
Beneath me, I can feel the ax;
They’d never take that from me!
Nor my arrows, quivers and packs;
And risk the fury of the gods.
They’d taken my power and left a naked soul.
Five-thousand years I spent beneath the frost,
Until I was found and freed.
My scattered ions watched, angry and lost.
They dragged my body from its bed
And my soul from another life.
Now part of me lies in a crypt
Another frozen tomb.
If only I hadn’t run and slipped,
All those ages ago,
I would now lie in sacred ground,
Back in the earth to which all are bound.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 10:16 AM UTC
Chordata found land for share
no Bovid, no beast of malice
Nubians' return to valley of Giza
Markhor now alive past desolate Hungza
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 5:27 PM UTC
Chordata's horns flourished for them
trekking in dirt with bah
searching hills of solid Earth
mammals' head toward A welkin world
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 5:23 PM UTC
Bovid's cloven hooves press Earth
near end for Chordata
alas, mysterious Nubian's form line
thousands Ibexes' from the welkin world
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 10:26 PM UTC
Similar but unidentical primers used,
To amplify the same gene
But from different organisms,
And the consequences are again
Similar but not identical.
A useful technique it is
As the genetic code
Itself is degenerate,
Meaning several different
Codons code for the same
Amino acid.
Different organisms
Are allowed this way
To have unique genetics
For highly similar proteins.
We use degenerate primers as well,
When designing is based
On protein sequences
Because of unknown
Codon sequences.
Them we may use
For resurrecting extinct animals
And play God.
It's already happening,
The beautiful Pyrenean Ibex,
Also known as the Bucardo,
Hunted down to extinction,
In past not so distant,
Was brought back to life.
The science used was biotechnology,
Degenerate primers and another
Technique known as SCNT,
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer,
Used in synergy to bring the ibex back.
Nov 1, 2019
Nov 1, 2019 at 12:48 AM UTC
Markhor gallops the Hungza-Nagar no more
pierced by new-age man spear
his tales lie within naive antlers
Chordata, you must gallop past the Hungza
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 5:25 PM UTC
I see ibicies on alpine slopes,
large curved horns coming almost
full circle. I descry mountain
hawks on the wing that descry
more than I. Bears I do not
see, for they are lost in their
own sleep, not on slopes, but
in slumber; the number of deer
is in actuality many, but I
have not earned the right to
discern more than few.
Vision is a funny thing: we
tend to infer from the many
we can see reality, but this
is illusory. Our sight we feel
can be enhanced by glasses
microscopic or telescopic,
but sight is not insight; seeing
is not knowing. The intellect
sees that all are different,
wisdom that all are one. The
ibex knows the mountain is
deeper than it is high.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jul 26, 2023
Jul 26, 2023 at 9:45 PM UTC
Trail leads Chordata to Oreamnos
how trespass did not flow
I call Gaur, A Bovid of evil
to the caves until arrival of mammal beast
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 5:25 PM UTC
Chordata, come, kneel before me
I, Markhor, praise you
I am you, in elder form
A goat with gallons of rock yet seen
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 10:24 PM UTC
~12000 BC Sabre Tooth Tiger
~ 1650 BC Mammoth
1681 Dodo
~ 1890 Falkland Islands Wolf
1918 Carolina Parakeet
1938 Schomburgk's Deer
~ 1960 Javan Tiger
1973 Tecopa Pupfish
1975 Round Island Burrowing Boa
1979 Dutch Alcon Blue Butterfly
1994 Golden Toad
2000 Pyrenean Ibex
2002 Baiji White Dolphin
2004 Black-faced Honeycreeper
2006 West African Black Rhino
2015 Pinta Island Tortoise
20?? **** Sapiens
Apr 19, 2020
Apr 19, 2020 at 10:27 AM UTC
I see ibicies on alpine slopes,
large curved horns coming almost
full circle. I descry mountain
hawks on the wing that descry
more than I. Bears I do not
see, for they are lost in their
own sleep, not on slopes, but
in slumber; the number of deer
is in actuality many, but I
have not earned the right to
discern more than few.
Vision is a funny thing: we
tend to infer from the many
we can see reality, but this
is illusory. Our sight we feel
can be enhanced by glasses
microscopic or telescopic,
but sight is not insight; seeing
is not knowing. The intellect
sees that all are different,
wisdom that all are one. The
ibex knows the mountain is
deeper than it is high.
Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 7:30 PM UTC