The Twisting Tale of An Avian Apparition
"The discrepancies are many, the dalliances are few,
both pitched against one dynamic, lifelong achievement"
Poking through the woods of the Mill Grove Audubon Estate,
suddenly came upon an ivy-covered studio shed
tucked away amongst foliage near Perkiomen Creek,
apparently some artist's hidden haven, lost in time.
Passing through this rickety door to dilapidation -
sun shards were streaming through the cracks in the viny skylight
revealing a musty, moldy chaise banked by windows
facing a wall-hung, wooden cupboard housing three dead birds -
Passenger Pigeons - skewered in wire, armature poses.
This, the work of a master taxidermist, piercing each
corpse carefully, arsenic smells remain dusty in air.
Must've inhaled a bit, whiffing almond taste everywhere.
Picked up one posed pigeon and then it crumbled to the touch.
Got woozy and fell back into a stupor on the chaise,
abruptly awakened by the strangest of intruders.
Leaning over me was this formidable, much older man
with wavy, shoulder-length hair, attired in huntsman style garb,
had deeply-set, sloping, sad eyes with an aquiline nose.
He said so softly, as sunlit specks surrounded his head:
"Some have questioned my love of pigeons..."
"I feel I am strange to all but the birds..."
"No man living knows the habits better of birds than I..."
"In my deepest troubles... I would retire to
some secluded part of our noble forests."
To wit, I reply directly to this spectral vision:
"You must be the artist of birds."
He reached in his coat and pulled out a small paper.
And, as this trips thousands of his memories, he then read:
Tribute To The Birds
So sadly, I must kill you my pretties -
then, I can love each of ye forever.
True tears moisten simple strokes of my brush,
gay gouache can caress every feather.
As you ascend, your wings will be fulfilled
when they lift to embrace heavenly winds.
We will long look skyward to hear thee sing
on high to that place of our earthly ends.
I shall study you and paint all your kind
to show the wide world how lovely thou are.
If I can complete just this one good thing -
hence, birder's high hopes should fly ever far.
Jean-Jacques Rabin 1836
He handed me his poem. I glanced up. He was gone.
I went to the clear creek waters to splash my face and hands -
breaking my fevered dream and to regain some clarity.
Since that time, further facts and accounts of note have surfaced
about John James Audubon's practices that do raise eyebrows.
While snake oil may have been coursing through his veins, his fondness
for all things ornithological cannot be dismissed.
His early searching turns into escape into nature
where he finds his true passion for birding and captures it
in a printed zoo book of 27 by 40 inch color plates.
His artistry effects billions of people's bird concepts
in western culture, especially in America.
He and his family had made some sacrifices and missteps
in ambitious adventures that are in part because of
his flamboyance, fabulism and the mores of the era -
slave dealings, failed finances, species errors, hyperbole,
intentional or not, cannot be his last legacy.
This lofty mission was always the same from inception -
to elevate avian awareness to the masses.
I have returned to the spot of the old shed near the creek,
it is no longer there, having been swept away by floods.
With no trace, what does live on is millions of bird lovers
and the 435 paintings in "The Birds Of America" book
that changed the course of avian history forever.
What do you think will be the next major twist in this tale?
Surprisingly though today, the world's bird population
has declined over the last fifty years by three billion.
We all know everything is actually interconnected
but is avian advocacy really dead forever?
Who replaces Audubon as seer for this ecosystem?
Encountering a real "bigger than life" itself message
from an advocate requires "bigger than life" acceptance.
What does it take to stir you from your own delirium?
The trees are down to three trillion, insects nearly half gone,
our ocean's waters are hotter and rising rapidly.
Theodore Roosevelt made the National Parks Program,
Carl Sagan had televised "billions and billions" of stars,
Robin Wall Kimmerer gave a voice to the native plants.
Greta Thunberg comes through the same rickety door into
your id and challenges you with a climate change concept.
So many others have led impassioned and worthy causes,
few with the artful flourish that Audubon commanded.
Come out of your cloudy stupor, go deep within yourself,
re-emerge boldly to fly ever far! Fly ever far.
Notes: Blank Verse (Fourteener) 86 lines, 778 words: John James Audubon
1785 - 1851, references to Mill Grove, the Audubon estate (historically in Shannonville/Hogtown Pennsylvania) where an Audubon museum exists: actual Audubon quotes are referenced/used with some edits: Jean-Jacques Rabin referenced as John James Audubon's original name (from Haiti): The
"Tribute To The Birds" embedded poem is rhyme in 5 iambs, 12 lines: this is a partially fictionalized "opinion piece" promoting the overarching achievement of Audubon offsetting his many detractions.
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