Rattling and piercing, the cran cries out
A rolling, trilling, gregarious shout
Ambiguously pitched: high, guttural, deep;
Cross the purr of a cat with the bleating of sheep,
Or the chirping of dolphins with mutant brass,
Each note multiplied by the numbers that pass:
A song hard to score and beyond all compare,
yet musically pleasantly strange to the ear:
Kewrr, k-r-r-r-ooo, garooo-a-a-a,
Kewrr, kkewrooh, kar-r-r-r-o-o-o.
They parachute down with an open stance
On to crowded fields where they dance their dance
In the midst of rivals and mates and unmated
With movements so strange, uncouth, unabated,
The march of the oldest living birds:
They match their songs, escaping words,
With the moves of long-traditioned lovers
Who bond for life and call out to each other:
Kewrr, k-r-r-r-ooo, garooo-a-a-a,
Kewrr, kkewrooh, kar-r-r-r-o-o-o.
Greater brown preacherbird shypoke sandhills
Of old, mistaken for whooping juveniles,
Fooling us all that they’re naturally brown;
They’re actually grey with a tinge of ground
From the marshland mud they smear on their feathers,
Just part of the primitive fun whenever
Big, vulgar red-headed birds get together,
And that red they wear on their featherless foreheads
Will flare to the world and expand when excited:
Kewrr, kkewrooh, kar-r-r-r-o-o-o.
They are Grus canadensis, with six subspecies
Of mares, roans and colts making sedges and sieges
As G.c. Canadian, Cuban and Greater,
And Florida, Ole Mississippi, and Lesser.
At 10,000 miles a year, 30 an hour
They flap six foot wings beating silence and power
With slow strokes down and quick strokes up, in time
To an ancient cadenced rhyme:
Kewrr, k-r-r-r-ooo, garooo-a-a-a,
Kewrr, kkewrooh, kar-r-r-r-o-o-o.
Eternity lives in the Sandhill Crane,
A reminder that all generations remain
In song and dance and spirit the same
Through the ages, by every intimate name
That echoes across the valley, relating
The spirit of God and resonating
From crane to crane and throughout creation.
All souls cry out, with variation:
Kewrr, k-r-r-r-ooo, garooo-a-a-a,
Kewrr, kkewrooh, kar-r-r-r-o-o-o.
from Thirty Birds
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