WANTED: THE MAN IN THE WHITE SHIRT AND BLUE PANTS

by Devon Balwit

The National Park Service is seeking information on a man who interacted with a newborn bison calf, which it said had to be euthanized after it was rejected by its herd. Credit: Hellen Jack, The New York Times, May 24, 2023

who moved a bison calf, causing it to be rejected,

who, I can guarantee you, was responding to the pleas

of his children—Dad, you have to do something! Dad!—

the way I respond to the urgency in my own kids’

voices and go charging off to school to intervene

in a situation that becomes worse, not better,

me ignorant of the whole story as I struggle to haul

the bellower out of the mud and set things right

while the herd looks on from a distance and sniffs

the wind. That dad and I wipe our hands on our pants

thinking job well done, unaware that kid and calf

both bear the unshakeable stink of a meddler.

Editor’s update from BuzzFeed: A Canadian man who put a bison calf at Yellowstone National Park in his SUV, forcing officials to later euthanize it, has pleaded guilty and will be fined. Shamash Kassam picked up the bison calf because he thought it looked cold and assumed "it would have been roadkill" if he did not intervene. Thursday, Kassam pleaded guilty to a wildlife violation charge and was fined a total of $735, according to KTWO.

Devon Balwit walks in all weather. In her most recent collection, Spirit Spout [Nixes Mate Books, 2023], she romps through Melville’s Moby Dick.

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