Webcam the World

Get all of it. set up the shots

at every angle; run them online

24-7. Get beautiful stuff (like

scenery and greenery and style)

and get the ugliness (like cruelty

and quackery and rue). there’s nothing

unastonishing — but get that, too. We have

to save it all, now that we can, and while.

Do close-ups with electron microscopes

and vaster pans with planetcams.

it may be getting close

to our last chance —

how many

millipedes or elephants are left?

How many minutes for mind-blinded men?

Use every lens you can — get Dubliners

in fisticuffs, the last Beijinger with

an abacus, the boy in Addis Abada who feeds

the starving dog. And don’t forget the cows

in neck-irons, when barns begin

to burn. the rollickers at clubs,

the frolickers at forage — take it all,

the space you need: it’s curved. Let

mileage be footage, let year be light. Get

goggles for the hermitage, and shades for whorage. Don’t be

boggled by totality: we’re here to save the world without exception. it will serve

as its own storage.