Poetry

Spring 2008

 

 

Gardner McFall

Night Birding, Trinidad

Under Moriche palms where macaws flew in
to roost and the Southern Cross emerged,
we stood in a patch of scrub savannah,
while our guide called for the Screech Owl

with a tape-recorded "who,"
who, who, who, who, like the start of the sixties song
"Wipe-out." No one moved.
We stood in darkness, each with different thoughts,

far from home, each with different forgotten
concerns, our only job to remain still
and wait. The owl moved in, close, a whirring uprush,
but disclosed nothing more,

then moved off. So we moved,
forming the same horseshoe up the road.
Again, a near brush, a felt proximity,
but not the revelation. What did we want

to find? The owl outside
or, like Wordsworth, something inside,
long flown? Or maybe nothing known before,
just the hoped-for, yet-to-come.

 

Back to Poetry