(last post)

         

Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe

Shorebird-Watching

For S.

 
To more than give names
to these random arrivals--
teeterings and dawdlings
of dunlin and turnstone,
black-bellied or golden
plover, all bound for

what may be construed as
a kind of avian Althing,
out on the Thingstead,

the unroofed synagogue
of the tundra--is already
to have begun to go wrong.

What calculus, what
tuning, what unparsed
telemetry within the
retina, what oversdrive
of hunger for the nightlong
daylight of the arctic,

are we voyeurs of? Our
bearings gone, we fumble
a welter of appearance,
of seasonal plumages
that go dim in winter:
these bright backs'

tweeded saffron, dark
underparts the relic
of what sibylline
descents, what harrowings?
Idiot savants, we've
brought into focus

But Adam, drawn toward
that dark underside,
its mesmerizing
circumstantial thumbprint,
would already have
been aware of this.

 

 

Amy Clampitt 

 

It's not just the question of what the birds think (last post), but how can we think of the birds? The sheer numbers of them! The kinds - "dunlin and turnstone, black-bellied or golden plover", the bewildering migrations- "all bound for what may be construed as a kind of avian Allthing", and gatherings - "out on the Thingstead, the unroofed synagogue of the tundra". What are all these? What pattern are we witness to? What instinct? What marvels are these indicative of?

No one has expressed this consternation quite like Amy Clampitt.