Ulrich Q. Wiedersehen was a most unusual klutz.

His monumental blunders in Germany were legendary, from going the wrong way on the Autobahn to falling off a turret of a tall Bavarian castle. Yet he always survived to screw up again.

Long-staring Germans called him “Der Glucklicher Dummkopf” (“The Lucky Fool”). Yet most believed that the spectacular feats of stupidity were signs that his luck would run out, and that Mr. Wiedersehen was doomed to go the way of the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Wooly Mammoth.

When Ulrich died, no one knew the cause. He departed this earth without saying goodbye, but throngs of Germans gathered for his funeral and shouted, “Oaf Wiedersehen.”

In a caliginous haze, soft as winter mist,

the cry of a thylacine rises through the trees—

a ghostly wail, long gone but still stirring,

echoing over hills that know her no longer.

The forest is still, save for whispers,

believers' murmurs hanging in the air,

of a world slipping away, of shadows departing.

The quiet is a sign, some say, of separation itself:

this undoing of old things into echoes and winds.

Along the damp riverbanks, bones rest cold

beneath the weight of time,

silent underfoot in the pulse of dark soil,

their shapes blurred but long-staring,

waiting for the day when nothing remains.

A flash in the woods, a pang of memory—

there’s no farewell, only the sense of wiedersehen,

a half-formed thought, that one day we will

meet again in some untouched dusk,

where silence and song are all that’s left.

In the wilderness

every animal

says

Wiedersehen

into sleep

pulling

caliginous twig

shadows wave

see you again

later, my friends

separation blue

on the horizon

Baiji in dreamscape

shhh... make

believers of us, kin

in the signs shedding

amidst the leaves

long staring swells

beneath, watching

as seeds and spores

float downwind

while we remain

rooted in

10.29.2024

Wiedersehen challenge @CKMunsell

caliginous clouds of Melanoplus spretus blocked out the light not two hundred years ago

Yet that same creature has now disappeared forever, possibly caused by crushed eggs from irrigation

The world is worse now, caddisflies haunt the extinct species list on Wikipedia

Because their homes are dying, drying,

the separation between rivers and rivals, spawning and spiraling,

between what humanity owns and what we have stolen

has disappeared completely.

The electric light overhead hums in agreement that this

cursed world is wrong, humanity had wronged ecology

And yet the sound of those katydids will never be recovered, Katy-did, Katy-did

Survival of the fittest means surviving the surround sound landscape of automobiles and

I am not one of the believers in outdoor cats not causing the apocalypse

Creatures’ words are ending, mine just happens to not be; though I will wish sometimes that

I may go extinct instead, since my long-staring soul cannot handle so much splintering of ecosystems that were once whole

Once whole, once hole, one hole, if there’s a hole I would like to fall into it please

And maybe forget to return to reality.