The author italicizes the term “recent” (paragraph 2, sentence 2) primarily to emphasize that the End-Cretaceous mass extinction

to kill a mockingbird basically is about a lawyer who goes against everything in a racist society like at the time of this novel, to defend a black man accused of sexual abuse. in the bible there are cases like that of joseph, who was accused by the woman of potifar, for a crime similar to that of tim robbinson, of that novel (genesis 39: 1-20). at this point we see that god also provides the escape to joseph, who was accused unjustly, but in his time, and through his attitude, his faith was not shaken, and god provided the solution. the perspective of god also written in the bible and not pay evil with evil. (ephesians 4: 32, 1 thessalonians 5: 15, 1 peter 3: 9). atticus, the lawyer, demonstrated during this lee novel, empathy, love of neighbor, understood the situation of this accused man. he went against everything in that society, and stood in favor of that man, for the injustice committed. this shows the empathy, the love taught by christ, in some passages that speak of love and justice in the sermon of the beatitudes (especially verses 6 and 7 of matthew 5).

where is the poem at?

in our power to make a world happy - to teach mankind the art of being so - to a character hitherto unknown - and to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated,

d. it compares the speaker reflection to a predatory bird that haunts the speaker