The songs are ancient
Sung by birds who’ll soon perish
Sunlit empty branch
© Chagall 2015
Tag Archive: extinction
The most haunting sound.
Whenever I lament the state of the world, I listen to the song of Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō. Put some headphones on and listen to this very short clip. I promise, you will not be disappointed.
Love to you all. Have a great weekend. —Carlos C.
Listen to the haunting song of the Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō, presumed extinct since 1985. Headphones recommended to fully appreciate the rhythm, tenor, tones, and intervals, of the bird’s song. This is the bird at night.
I believe this is the only known footage of the bird:
http://www.arkive.org/kauai-oo/moho-braccatus/video-00
See here for additional recordings and to browse the wonderful collection of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Macaulay Library
http://macaulaylibrary.org/
Again, farewell Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō.
—–Chagall
The butterfly landed, I said
Stay with me, there’s nothing out there
but genetically modified milk thistle, what’s left of it
here it’s all good, all pure.
She lifted in a breeze, traced a crazy pattern
as Monarchs do, and for a moment I thought . . .
she got steadily smaller in sunlight and was gone.
© Chagall 2015
Whenever I lament the state of the world, I listen to the song of Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō. Put some headphones on and listen to this very short clip. I promise, you will not be disappointed.
Love to you all. Have a great weekend. —Carlos C.
Listen to the haunting song of the Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō, presumed extinct since 1985. Headphones recommended to fully appreciate the rhythm, tenor, tones, and intervals, of the bird’s song. This is the bird at night.
I believe this is the only known footage of the bird:
http://www.arkive.org/kauai-oo/moho-braccatus/video-00
See here for additional recordings and to browse the wonderful collection of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Macaulay Library
http://macaulaylibrary.org/
Again, farewell Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō.
—–Chagall
Lazy birds sing what sound to be questions,
Trilly lilts angled so oddly in time.
Shush. Hear the hurrahs?
Winds schuss a course of boughs.
Waves atop etchings on sand
Erase traces of what once was.
Beyond, there come the loggers,
Mechanical, Om-like, spun chorales,
Mantra for flat-felled forests:
Erase traces of what was once.
I rush the treeline insanely
Unable to draw enough air
To support the bellow I want to import,
The reply I want to thunder.
To the wood pigeon, grand thrush, paradise parrot,
the heath hen and laughing owl,
the parakeet, grebe and island rail,
piopio, Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō . . .
My chest heaves, I’m a front-row mourner.
Hot eyelids strand gummed tears.
I see the world through rainbows
Cleaved cleanly through
My optic nerve.
I purse my lips, find the bird call in me,
Arpeggiate soulful lament
Cleanly without glissando.
I beg:
Take heed – just fly – just fly away –
Find places we cannot find!
But my song is lost as the world surrounds.
The crescendo envelops, it’s near.
The steady march, the goose step advance:
Erase traces of what once was.
Leave no trace of what used to be.
From above and away I hear lonely cries –
ʻi ʻŌʻō
ʻi ʻŌʻō
ʻi ʻŌʻō . . .
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I need to get out,
I’ll miss all the butterflies!
This their final day.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Kaua’i ‘O’o,
pacific honey eaters,
extinct, there’s no more.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Lazy birds sing what sound to be questions,
small inquisitions, diminuendo, trills in five-eighths time,
while hurrahs of wind rush the dense canopy of their home,
like waves on sand.
Erase traces of what used to be.
Beyond, I hear loggers, large machines, mechanical chorales spun,
in odd reverberant Om, mantras for flat-felled forests.
Erase traces of what used to be.
I rush the treeline, run insanely,
unable to draw enough air to support the bellow I envision,
the weight of the howl I want to import, the reply I want to scream,
to the wood pigeon, the grand thrush,
the paradise parrot, the heath hen,
to the parakeet, the laughing owl,
the island rail, the piopio,
to the Kaua’i ‘O’o,
the grebe, and the oystercatcher . . .
My chest heaves, uncontrollable gasps,
like a mourner in the front row,
my eyelids gummy, thick strands of hot tears,
sun-waves diffracted, rainbows sheared on my optic nerve.
I purse my lips and find the bird call within me,
I sing a soulful lament, run arpeggios clean
without glissando, a call to flee,
to fly away, to find places that we cannot find.
But my song is lost to the world of sound around me,
to the crescendo that approaches rapidly, the steady march, a goose step:
Erase traces of what used to be.
Erase traces of what used to be.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 