A snippet, written in March 2022

In the corners of my eyes, there were always birds

In 2021, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed removing 11 birds, 1 fruit bat, 8 freshwater mussels, 1 plant, and 2 fish from the endangered list, into extinction. Schrödinger's cat – does saying it make it so? One of which, the Ivory-billed woodpecker, or the “Lord God Bird” is the subject of much debate – its unseen flight and winged shadow much like God, whom the U.S. Fish & Wildlife have not declared extinct. Although God is a bird, God is also much more and much less. This being the case, proposing to declare God extinct falls out of their jurisdiction. 

Other birds proposed for delisting due to extinction include the Bachman’s warbler, the Bridled White-eye, and the Large Kauai thrush. The thrush being one of 11 species from Hawaiʻi and Guam on the list. 

God, to be clear, is not extinct– it is just that God has not been sighted for millenia, and the sightings were hard to confirm: a pillar of fire, a pillar of smoke, a wrestling angel, a palestinian jew. Who can say? Who can climb the morning song and carry down its flag? (The bird, but no one else.)