Thursday, October 27, 2011

The lyre bird.


Portrait of Ella Mae Morse, singer.


Words have had it unkind,

Taking the better parts of
Centuries to finally get
The standard tongue's bent

And thrive.

Not so for the lyre, a bird, land-bound,
Left here, who was hatched out
Surprisingly as his throat cleared and
Songbook already fit with sound

He corrupts once in his own favor then
Once against.

He knows his own name amid the glossary
Of sounded-out animals, a choir of
Would-have-beens and precipitants of
The echo--the rest of them, they scurry.

To the evolved shoulder--fit as the bird's sharp tongue,

Carry. Your job as opposed to flying is to carry.



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