Shorebird-Watching, By AMY CLAMPITT

For S.

To more than give names

to these random arrivals--

teeterings and dawdlings

of dunlin and turnstone,

black-bellied or golden

plover, all bound for

what may be construed as

a kind of avian Althing,

out on the Thingstead,

the unroofed synagogue

of the tundra--is already

to have begun to go wrong.

What calculus, what

tuning, what unparsed

telemetry within the

retina, what oversdrive

of hunger for the nightlong

daylight of the arctic,

are we voyeurs of? Our

bearings gone, we fumble

a welter of appearance,

of seasonal plumages

that go dim in winter:

these bright backs’

tweeded saffron, dark

underparts the relic

of what sibylline

descents, what harrowings?

Idiot savants, we’ve

brought into focus

But Adam, drawn toward

that dark underside,

its mesmerizing

circumstantial thumbprint,

would already have

been aware of this.

From “A Silence Opens” by Amy Clampitt. (Knopf: $20.) 1994 Reprinted by permission.