Mark making

In Competition No. 2988 you were invited to compose a poem making the case for a national commemoration day for a person or thing of your choice.
 
While Alanna Blake championed the dandelion, there were also impassioned calls for days that high-five Thomas Crapper, Doris Day and the tent. I, for one, would happily celebrate a Tom Waits day with Adrian Fry. The winners below take £25 each. Bill Greenwell pockets £30.
 

Bring us the day of the dodo,
The day of the passenger pigeon,
That their memories never corrode, oh
Let’s cheer them, and more than a smidgen:
Let’s praise those whose very long luck
Receded to zilch and to zippo:=
The quagga, the Amsterdam duck,
The bluebuck, the tiny dwarf hippo,
The great auk they killed on St Kilda,
The red rail, and slim Wimmer’s shrew,
All dead for a ducat, a guilder,
Like the broad-faced and pale potoroo.
Though the gracile opossum’s extinct,
Let us sift our remembrance’s urn:
All creatures’ misfortunes are linked —
Don’t forget.