Black Skimmers on the Gulf Coast.

Black Skimmers on the Gulf Coast

Rynchops niger

   The afternoon increases as it wanes
   And Skimmers, which are named for what they do,
   Fly low above the water where they strain
   A living morsel they don't need to chew.
   Their liquid movements and ecstatic cries
   Embody what is lingua franca here,
   A place where Name and Motion compromise,
   That is, a promise of remaining near.

   But sea birds have no use for being named
   By homo sapiens, ostensibly
   In times of greater care for what was framed
   When even Man was named more sensibly.
   What matters is the movement of the bird.
   Its flight is name enough, a substantive
   Of verb as noun. They're like a German word.
   Their form and function are their genitive.

   While Man went all about acquiring things,
   Destroying what he did not understand,
   Black Skimmers owned the motion of their wings
   As it has been for centuries of sand.
   The more we own the less we have to name,
   Unlike this bird whose flight defines the sea.
   While afternoons increase the more they wane,
   Black Skimmers skim oblivious to me.

Wilmer Mills's Light for the Orphans has just been published by Story Line Press.