One by one they blink out, the species,
like stars at dawn. This frog, that bug,
this bird. Meanwhile, in the back yard’s 
final frontier my kids knock over
a flower pot and hunker down to watch 
the pill bugs scramble to figure out
what the hell just happened. Pill bugs
as in sow bugs, sow bugs as in roly
polys. Depends on where you’re from.
But poking them with a stick to watch
a bug become a ball, a tiny planet,
is something kids know they must do.
Like Stone Age hunters they drop
to their haunches and draw
their own conclusions. Unlikely
my boys will ever see a snow 
leopard or a whale. Possibly
not even a hummingbird. Therefore
pill bugs must serve as surrogates,
a burden they seem to grasp.
They are the rhinos of the suburbs,
the narwhals of tomorrow. Long 
may they thrive! And if the whole
kit and caboodle comes down
to pill bugs, may they roll up and clench 
within the small, defiant fists of themselves 
the fierce lost fire of our wildness.