1. Contents
a drawerful of meadowlarks
two ravens
fifty-four cardinals
great blue heron
folded in half like a yoga master
Eskimo curlew
body straight as a compass
beak to the back of the north wind
red-tailed hawks
tag clear in the Iris print:
killed 7 miles South of Kooper
Nebraska November 5, 1926
Crickets and Snake found in
Stomach Eyes Yellow
twenty photographs acid free
with brown string bound
scrolls of spiderwort
sand bluestem, three-awned grass
coneflowers with haloed heads
(the nimbus stain of drying/dying)
bull snakes coiled in jars
Aunt Maybelle put her piccalilli up in
prairie lizards, carp suckers
boxes of bones, moths, butterflies
a jackrabbit in mid-leap
Plate 20: trumpeter swan
in its bent head the Death of Marat
cabinet of wonders
bones and feathers of our ancestors
gastroliths of creedless space
with what fear we turn each page
wait for the rare, the extraordinary
to surprise our souls
2. Glossary
Eastern meadowlark:
family TROOP-ih-al
from habit of gathering
in a large flock or troop
a bird of prairies whose songs
mean spring whose nest
is lined with lespedezas
whose back resembles dried grass
also called common lark
crescent stare, marsh quail
mudlark, medlark, medlar
Eskimo curlew:
one-hundred shot by breakfast
field:
land suitable for tillage
Field Museum, Chicago:
twenty-two million objects
organized in realms
a collection of bird skins
fourth largest in the world
insects occupy two floors
fifty thousand Belizean
neotropical freshwater fishes
recently acquired
while the world rages along,
scientists must still collect
iris: flower, iris: part of the eye
Iris print
prâr’e: noun
as tall as a man on horseback
as far as the eye can see
song comma birdsong:
(not represented in the Contents
lost in the case of the curlew
God’s ear may hear)
trumpeter swan
once nearly extirpated
its skin made into powder puffs
its call a deep and sonorous
ko ho ko ho
we wait, our souls
still capable of wonder
yet fail to see in these extraordinary
bones and feathers of our ancestors
our names upon the page
our doubts, our tattered space
3. Historical Background
a summer’s night in 1915
the doctor Bergtold
driving through the canyon dark
observed ahead two small pink spots
reflective eye shine of a night bird
he stopped the car, got out
and fired at the bird
to make certain its identity
Whitman’s friend John Burroughs
of a long-legged thrush: I shot it and saw
that it was a new acquaintance
I do not believe that anyone
could have shown more zeal
said Darwin for the most holy cause
than I did for shooting birds
in 1824 off the Falkland Islands
the ocean covered with foam like a washing tub
Scottish naturalist David Douglas
caught on hooks baited with fat pork
forty-nine albatross
their voice like the bleating of goats
after Cyrus Hall McCormick
made a better reaper
he built a factory in Chicago
the increased times
hayfields were mown
led to the meadowlark’s decline
within the sunless space
of drawers we file our souls
then turn the page
more than mere wonders
these bones and feathers of our ancestors
a confessional extraordinary
4. The Photographer
quail-eyed goddess
who holds in her hand
a prairie that is past
who opens drawer upon drawer
of its mute remains
and stamps her feet in joy
and gratitude for what she finds:
the swaddling clothes
the pattern-revealing outstretched wing
the calligraphy of care that labels demonstrate
affirmation of life in ghastly death
hers a quenchless lust for beauty
a demon need to sing a cradlesong sharp
as blizzarding skies when grasses
crash their cyan cymbals
their yellow black magenta keys
confessional extraordinary
within its margined space
the bloodied trap lines of our ancestors
the tortured longings of our souls
beauty, art, and truth among life’s wonders
a billion drops of ink on every page
5. The Exhibit
past strollered crowds
museum store, McDonald’s T. rex Sue
through spirit world of drums and totems
stick figures wearing skulls
beyond but not outside these oceanic shadows
(draw magic circles for your safe return)
a prairie hangs
to its left, Maori meeting house
museum floor its Earth and ceiling Sky
gods and ancestors its walls
and from the TV monitor nearby
there issues forth an incantation
(the beloved dead
keep company with the living)
the sweetest, deepest
most sonorous chanting
engrossed in these harmonics
I do not see the visitor when she arrives
nor sword unsheathed until the blow
then wings dipped low I bow
I raise my feathered head
and trumpet to the walls
ko ho ko ho
allons
children of the meadowland
ko ho ko ho
silence drags its feet across the page
thus all the more extraordinary
that we, before this cabinet of wonders
this f-stopped space
pour forth from deep within our souls
the sacred music of our ancestors
6. On Returning Home
they say the males at sunset
sing facing the sun
chevrons blazoned against gold
they whistle cricket tunes
earth song Thoreau called it
I remember how the jars
in my Aunt Mace’s cellar
were organized by color
sometimes the jars exploded
blood red shards on sweated walls
we ate the piccalilli
with fresh picked lima beans
that grew beside the hen house
I pushed my hand
beneath the hens’ warm bodies
felt for the womb’s dread work
we cannot know our ancestors
except as pictures on a page
how can we touch again their joy our souls?
their flame extraordinary?
gastroliths of creedless space
all that remain of wonders
wonders of our ancestors
their extraordinary space
and our souls on every page
— Joan Gibb Engel
