by
Catherine
McGuire
On the screen, it's always
car chases, bombs - drive-thru destruction.
Apocalypse has theme music now.
Hours of snip and paste, sound track sync'd,
tailored catastrophe, neat romance.
As we step out into air (fugue of broiling sun
or blue-white streetlamps, radiant), we ease back
into our lives (only slow by comparison)
turn IPODs to something spritely,
leave collapse behind us.
Meanwhile, data builds its slow tsunami
until even scientists send SOS.
We are not there to see their looks of dread
as data unfolds an arc of irrefutable
proportions. Like tree frogs at night
first one, then a chorus, over and over.
This is serious! But there's no theme music,
no romance, so we duck into
another theater, popcorn in hand.
The
Andean Night Monkey
- Issue Eight
The
Andean Night Monkey Night monkeys are found in the Andes range throughout
South America. Night monkeys inhabit evergreen tropical rainforests and
deciduous scrub forests, as well as habitat along rivers. They prefer
dense middle-level canopies and understories with tangled vines that provide
cover for sleeping sites. They also like hollows in old trees (Note the
photo). Night monkeys eat mainly fruits, but also consume leaves, flowers,
insects, tree frogs, spiders, bats, birds, and eggs. They forage for food
at all levels of the forest, from the canopy down to the forest floor.
Night monkeys are hunted for their meat and fur by native people and poachers
and are sold as pets and used for medical research. The IUCN lists the
Andean night monkey as Vulnerable, facing a high risk of extinction in
the wild, because of small populations and habitat destruction from deforestation.