Every tripod-
toting birder
knows it never
nests on urban
girders. Even
fences set its
scalded-crimson
head askew, its
waddle swinging,
wings akimbo.
Few have got it
on their lists and
fewer still have
caught it singing,
this endangered
North American
candor, cousin
of the done-in
dodo, big-eyed
Big Sur tremor-
tenor — only
ten or twenty
hang glide over
Modoc County,
Some species can crack pavement with their shoots
to get their share of sun some species lay
a purple froth of eggs and leave it there
to sprinkle tidepools with tadpole confetti
some species though you stomp them in the carpet
have already stashed away the families
that will inherit every floor at midnight
But others don’ t go forth and multiply
as boldly male and female peeling the bamboo
their keepers watching in despair or those
endangered species numbered individually
