I. In the Pasture
Look into the sunlight
skimming the dew as if this were the Gulf.
Ignore the cows
standing as still as sea stacks,
waiting to be fed
by their student keepers, who’ve overslept.
To the university pasture
in the middle of town, flock sandhill cranes
escaping Michigan.
A big gray corps de ballet breaking formation,
they strut and flap,
bounce and rattle. Then suddenly,
the cranes seem smaller,
no longer silvery. Rising above all this,
keeping their company
but never lifting his voice, there being no other
of his kind to call,
looms a bird so rare I thought I’d never see it,
except on paper:
the tallest bird in North America.
Far from the fence,
almost to the trees that hide the houses
crowding around
a last open space—look, a whooping crane.
II. In the Trees at the Alligator Farm
Hats in a shop window left over
from the lost age
of millinery—look, egrets are nesting.
They fan their plumes
to impress a female. I’m impressed
by how she clings
to a branch as he leaps to her back,
the whole tree almost
brought to its knees. But, at its crown,
a rectory of wood storks
refuses to be shaken. Their woody beaks
clack prehistoric approval.
A flock of male photographers staggers by,
each lens longer
than the one before, all pointed—toward what?
Look, two eggs mock
the color of sky reflected in the weedy water.
Part lint, part craw,
a nestling waits for its silky mother
to land, to lower
the long rope of her slender neck,
and, in dainty waves,
choking, regurgigate the rich black bile
of family happiness.
