no one moved towards me or my light. I saw them
splayed out along the benches that defined the limits
of the park, couple on couple, each couple
quilted together, their arms like tree roots
struggling in the ground, in secret.
Yes, the park was full of lovers, plein.
One man appeared so intense in his task of thrilling
his girl, he kept his eyes open to capture the effects
of his kisses’ forward motion in her shoulders’
flitting, as if he had broken a nerve in her. Even his,
those open eyes never motioned towards me, no red glints
caught or returning the expositive light I set about,
those shifts of yellow which seemed with him and among
the others there no exposure after all. No one was moved.
The drunks, as I approached, just kept pissing on
their chosen graffiti beneath the bridges and near
the entrance to the museum. The typical night creatures
set about their typical professions. The bats assembled
from their houses in extraordinary numbers, crevassing
through the air, their senses assured of the deepest cover.
The owls in their trees did not stop feasting on stockpiles
of unlucky mice, bones and all. The restless spiders wove
to outpace the morning dew that might reveal
their targets. And though those targets glistened
— 93 —
slightly in my own lantern’s reaching, the spiders
never withdrew. In this light, I could say I caught
everyone without their letting go. I knew then
this was mine, too. I was sure of it. Not there,
in the park, but outside of the dream, and not mine
alone, this consistency which could not be called
oblivion despite its appearance so. This was our own
peace, the willingness and willfulness of our engagement.
— 94 —
THE RESTORATION OF THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER
i.
How many people fail each day, refuse
to heed the warnings set out for us by officials
or conservators or official conservators:
Do not feed the animals, stay on the path,
no recording devices allowed. Like that day
in the Art Gallery of Ontario, when we all turned
to look at one of your favourite paintings,
The Mass of Saint Gregory, the one in which
Jesus rises from the coffin-shaped altar just
as a priest celebrates the transubstantiation.
Neither the priest nor his altar boy appear
surprised at his rising or notice that something once
called miraculous seems to be taking place again
and in their own line of vision. The boy holds
rather than tugs at the priest’s vestments. The mass
for them is just another dull event – not much of a rise
for us, either, what with our conversation centred
around the cock and the other souvenirs of the passion
painted to hang there on the wall of Saint Gregory’s
church. What appealed to us most was not the body
but the crown of thorns, the rooster, and a thick nail.
So thick, that woman murmured, from her place
across the room, as if to me, it is so thick and red.
And she raised her hand and tried it, pointing her finger
upward and over that larger, more fabulous piece:
The Expulsion of the Money-Changers by the Master
of the Kress Epiphany. It was probably only by chance
that I turned to catch a glimpse of her there, rubbing
her index finger hard and slow over one of the red,
lozenge-shaped stones strewn about the temple
— 95 —
on that holy day for barterers. Great works, the most
ambitious accomplishments, it seems, are always
accompanied by the sternest warnings, directives
to limit our touch, our access to, and hence
our experience of things, polite requests and firmer
imperatives which stymie our pleasures and desires,
even if we have only brought ourselves there,
in the face of those magnetic objects, those
certifiable masterpieces of nature and art, to justify
another person’s notions after all. Just then I found
myself, observed myself, really, (no one finds themselves
these days) indignant and curatorial. I stood there,
with my mouth agape, afraid for the life of the painting
and stunned by that woman’s gall.
So then,
I stood apart from you all, wondering how
her abuse might multiply. What would happen
to that glossy, painted stone if it were rubbed
a thousand times by the same or similar hands,
hands like hers or mine, rubbed impatiently out
of some brief fascination, or soberly, and with love?
That stone might seem to vanish, almost, entirely,
until the Kress’s painted Jesus (livelier than our own),
baffled by what was happening in and around the temple,
appeared to be beating the moneylenders, toppling
their tables of trade goods and sending them out
of the temple with far less reason than he ought, or,
in some stunning reversal, with more reason than
we ever thought possible. That Jesus might have stood
swinging and swatting at the moneylenders, there,
surrounded by lovely, luminous, rubbed-out lozenges
heaved into the air, money-lozenges that in their faded state
— 96 —
looked like what we might have imagined, at least,
in the context of that newer draft, to be souls rising.
It was only natural, then, that as I moved to raise
my voice and in my voice’s failing to tell her to stop
touching that painting, that it was against the rules, I wanted to be that woman there, rubbing the chits.
It was only natural that having seen that woman
standing there with her hand pursed just so, I wanted
to put my own finger on that thick, red piece, that jewel,
before it vanished, or in order to vanish it into soul.
— 97 —
ii.
As children, my brother and I, we lived along
what was once a rural route in Forsythe County,
Georgia. A few times a year, the school there
sat us down for a lesson in biology, showing us each
and every time, the same filmstrip they had shown
for years: The Disappearance of the Ivory-Billed
Woodpecker. I suppose the film made it easier for them,
our teachers, to express something about nature
and ecology without directly tackling evolution or sex-
education. Those black and white stills of the bird in flight,
the first and last footage ever to be recorded of the creature
that had since, as far as the man on the voice-over tape
was concerned, made itself extinct, or abstained
at least from human contact, for all it is worth, keeping
so far out of eye and earshot that no one could claim
to have seen it, anyway (extinction, after all, is difficult,
if not impossible to prove – you would have to scour
the earth with an impeccable eye and be absolutely sure
you had not simply missed what you were looking for),
no matter how many times we saw that film, that bird
flitting from the screen, or we
re told by the regretful voice
on the taped commentary that the bird and his entire
species were likely vanished for good, rubbed out
from even the wildest of places, that filmstrip always got
us going. We would rush (you would have, too)
with our friends from the neighbourhood out into our back-
yards, those woods which extended into other woods
which at the time belonged to no one, calling for that bird
and listening for his ancient response. We would hunt
in groups or delve secretly, in our own private hours,
in case that impossible bird, with his impossible tap
— 98 —
and his impossibly white bill might reveal himself to us alone. I am sure it made a real scientist out of at least
one of us, that mass of fancy the filmstrip stirred up,
substituting for lessons and textbooks and our teachers’
demure drawls. Of the rest of us, at least, it made temporary
explorers, shook us out of our habits into a new kind
of restlessness. In the days that followed we would turn
up in class with the exoskeletons of insects we had found
clinging to the trees, claiming that at least a few of them,
rather than escaping from their first skins into the heavy
weather, a few of those bugs must have been taken
by the woodpecker in his secret predations. Our teachers,
then, were satisfied. We had come to an understanding.
— 99 —
iii.
A moment of astonishment from the free paper
in the market last Tuesday (newspapers, too,
they say, may one day become extinct): Plucked
from Extinction, the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is no
longer considered vanished. One lone, giant male
was spotted amidst an expanse of forest in Arkansas –
the newest jar. At some point in the last few weeks
a man with a video camera caught the elusive bird alive,
at rest, and then in motion, nailed him, we are told,
on film, and with no harm done to the thing itself.
The media, at least the Tuesday paper media, went reeling
over the improbability of such a find, portioning out
in no subtle proportions the epic consequence
of the discovery itself, though this discovery, too,
in the context of the reports, seemed like any one
of our present-day rages. This is huge . . . It’s kind
of like finding Elvis, they went, some waxing poetical
as they watched a winged ghost . . . flitting about the tupelo
trees in the Big Woods of Arkansas, allowing
for an extra dash of wonder in this their daily grace.
But that bird was not once a ghost, and what with
the initial discovery broken, there would be more work
in the warning than in the wondering after all.
Even in that breaking Tuesday morning report,
the media anticipated the rage that might follow
upon the initial vision, the money shot, when all
the scientists and birdwatchers set out for a closer look,
when those of us who recall the earlier footage,
remembering our own bouts of exploration, started
making plans to go and see it for ourselves, or when
— 100 —
even just the normals, reading the story for the first time felt a twinge of something sacred stirring within
and struck out to find the woodpecker, too, that bird
caught still and in our own century by that videographer
what’s-his-name. And so the paper’s imperatives
got set down in fast running print to foil us all, the birders,
those who grew up along the film strip circuit, and
the normals alike, to keep us all from running down
to that hollow in God’s country with our cameras
or even just with our raw eyes for a glimpse of the thing.
Do not follow it. One man’s capture is enough.
It makes sense, I suppose, for us all to refrain from going out
to some spot in the woods in Arkansas and scaring that bird
half to death, trampling its nest or the precious ground
below. To stand in the general vicinity of where that bird
might one day procreate with the still hidden female,
her wings reddening, his body stiff as stone, the both
of them re-emerging from the thick with an entire species
once thought vanished, for good, that would be criminal.
No good looking as they store and warm their eggs. No good
chasing after the good old bird that has already made
itself known. No. The paths would grow so dull, the woods
so extensively damaged, it is no wonder, though it is thorny,
though it stings for a few minutes or maybe a little longer, say,
if it bears upon your own story, if you have been in the know,
no wonder they keep telling us not to go into the woods now,
and not to drive into extinction this wingèd that never left.
— 101 —
DAUGHTER AND SON
We planted a self-fruiting cherry tree beside the obelisk
crowned with honeysuckle. It all appears exotic.
The leaves of the tree, thin as an infant’s fingers,
and the tree’s thinner branches thicken in the breeze.
The honeysuckle’s yellow tips and teardrops fly
the wooden stand. The young and younger planted there
together form the kind of lean tableau you would likely find
as a line drawing in a nineteen-seventies Bible. That tree
and obelisk might very well glance over the famed waters
of Babylon or stand towards the back in that scene where
the whore appears the only one to bother bringing well-
water to the traveller. The other women there, we read,
had already completed their business and left.
It is likely the honeysuckle will come back next year.
Though, it is of little consequence. Who knows how long
this particular cherry tree will last either, though we do
our best to encourage the roots. Even if it survives,
who knows if it will ever come to flower. The raccoons
and the sparrows living here will likely steal the cherries,
anyway, before we step across the lawn to do the gathering.
It is of no matter. It is immaterial. Just looking at them there,
like that, you know that you will always have your fruit.
— 102 —
EPILOGUE
CURSES
Do not be surprised if, having been asked to perform
some service or ceremony, and flying from it, you
have your turn with curses. You pass a dead squirrel
or a pigeon, maybe, and you fail to place it in a bag
or to call the city to see if it might require additional
inspection by those schooled in disease. There will be
consequences for flying this or any other scene. You
might lose your voice in the time designated for singing,
or you might not recover just as quickly as you thought
from one of your more somber attitudes. Some day,
that dead body, as if alive and breathing, or its double
of a slightly different hue, might very well call you out
with its less-than-appealing lung-shot and give you the tumble
you have long been wanting, not just turning you off the path,
or dirtying your suit, but nice damage, concussing,
or even hollowing out your more myst
erious eye.
At this point, it will be too late to return to the place
where you failed to perform your service. Why take
the chance that your own particular comeuppance
will be the lesser of these griefs, when you might spare
yourself entirely, by crossing yourself as you should,
whistling a brief requiem for the little vermin, or cursing
the sportsman or the gas company or the god who surely
planned this body’s fall from the tree beside your house?
This figure which stands for the last of its species, as any dead
body would, why not just take care of it at first with a tent-
fold of the morning news and a liberal fist of dirt?
— 105 —
NOTES
“To a Translator of Horace”: The speaker refers to David Ferry’s
The Odes of Horace (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998), particularly i.28, “A Beach Near Tarentum.” Some references to the latter
lines of this poem are also made in “Curses.” As reported in Anne McIlroy’s “Going to Extremes to Fight Global Warming,”
Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, was “one of the
most prominent early proponents of using geoengineering to
fight global warming,” The Globe and Mail, (Toronto), June 3, 2006.
“Surveillance”: The epigraph is taken from Emily Dickinson’s
poem #1233. Kudzu is an Eastern Asian vine imported into the American South by mistake. It grows over natural and unnatural objects in sheets like a tarpaulin or dust cover.
“Miners’ Houses”: This poem references Lawren S. Harris’
Miners’ Houses, Glace Bay, 1925. Art Gallery of Ontario.
“The Ears of Kings”: The garden referred to here is on the cam-
pus of Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois). Eugene
Schieffelin, head of the American Acclimatization Society for
European Settlers, released approximately eighty European
Starlings ( Sturnus vulgaris) in New York’s Central Park in March of 1890 and forty more the following year.
“The End of the Novel”: Loose models for the speaker here are
Stephen Marche’s Raymond and Hannah, Ian MacEwen’s
Atonement, and Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea.
“A Muscle in the Country”: The final lines refer to Robert Frost’s
“The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.”
— 107 —
“Annotations on your Pastoral, Summer”: The speaker responds to Alexis in “Summer” from Alexander Pope’s Pastorals.
“Of Minor Figures”: The Old English quotation from Ælfric’s
A Newer Wilderness Page 7