POEMS
AMY CLAMPITT
Shorebirds in Seasonal Plumage
Observed Through Binoculars
To more than give names
to these random arrivals -
teeterings and dawdlings
of dunlin and turnstone,
blackbellied 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 overdrive
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
