Darwin's Wren

Today my school had a special lecture on Darwin
which the public thought might raise a stink
with those who disagree with Moses and evolution.
Some on the faculty called for the creation
of a committee which would have a Wren
as its logo and could be seen from the walk

if you didn’t drive and chose instead to walk
which is how on the Galapagos Darwin
got around, spotting those big beaked wrens
and trudging through the waste and stink
of giant turtles who by their own creation
nest in sand bowls the product of evolutions

of flipper tosses and waddling revolutions
and romantic turtle starry night walks
on the theoretical beach, humming to create
just the right mood to catch observant Darwin
off guard with his notepad of fleeing the stink
of sea weed or the rotting body of a wren

I hit with my car on the way home, wrenching
the steering wheel to miss. I guess evolution
had it in for that bird, though it really stinks
because when I was a kid and still had to walk
I flinched at birds. poking notes like Darwin
at the beagle’s hull, like sympathy creates

possibilities, like turtles with necks create
less effective hidey-holes or if that wren
had just swooped up I wouldn’t need Darwin
to feel better, to justify its death as evolution.
I could have at least stopped, got out, walked
back to see. I open the vents to get the stink

out of the van when I pass something stinking
and dead. Sometimes it’s an act of creation
to kill, a turtle. To get in the car, leave walking
behind. Maybe there will be a giant beaked Wren
that can take on cars, something that evolves
into the splat on the road called Darwin.

Wheels roll out a wren’s beak in the traction
of my evolution. Every mark bears the stink
of creation. Monkeys walk in Darwin’s head.