Clean Up on Isle Earth

Coyotes. Rock pigeons. Cockroaches. Mice.
Unsung heroes of the insurrection,
The synanthropes you can’t exterminate,
No matter how many you trap and kill,
Can’t drive extinct, no matter how you try.

To them you are merely death, while to you
They are the principle itself of life—
Almost four billion years death’s been trying
And failing to put a full stop to life.
Life plays both sides, feeds death lives to buy time.

You silly gambit in the teeth of life.
You life-autopruning mechanism.
Your synanthropes will outline the hollow
That once was you, the way fungi and moss
Briefly outline skeletons sunk and lost.