POEMS
actorlike in ostrich-skins, with
the right hand making the neck move
as if alive and
from a bag the left hand
strewing grain, that ostriches
might be decoyed and killed! Yes this is he
whose plume was anciently
the plume of justice; he
whose comic duckling head on its
great neck, revolves with compass–
needle nervousness,
when he stands guard, in S-
like foragings as he is.
preening the down on his leaden-skinned back.
The egg piously shown
as Leda's very own
from which Castor and Pollux hatched,
was an ostrich-egg. And what
could have been more fit
for the Chinese lawn it
grazed on, as a gift to an
emperor who admired strange birds, than this
one who builds his mud-made
nest in dust yet will wade
in lake or sea till only the
head shows. A nervous restless
bird that flees at sight
of danger, he feigns flight
to save his chicks, decoying
his decoyers; never known to hide his
head in sand, yet lagging
when he must, and dragging
an as-if-wounded wing. The friend
of hippotigers and wild
asses, it is as
though schooled by them he was
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