POETRY AS FIELD GUIDE115sunrise. As is always the case with bird-watching, we recognize an indi-
vidual bird as belonging to a type; an unfamiliar and unnamed bird is
an unseen bird, a blur of features. Giving the name, identifying it,
is how we give recognition to animals that we can only see for moments
at a time. The poem dramatizes and announces this act of vision and
knowing: “That is the tern.” But the one word isn’t enough—a tern is
both a sharp-winged white seabird with black-tipped wings (of which
there are some three dozen species or subspecies) and is the kind of tern
one knows in one’s own region. The poem attempts to capture the
miraculous beauty of the bird’s body and movement. The poem articu-
lates that admiration we feel for an animal’s singular perfection, reveal-
ing its abilities, behavior, and prowess.
That is the tern. A blood-tipped harpoon
Hollow-ground in the roller-dazzle,
Honed in the wind-flash, polished
By his own expertise—Now finished and in use.
The wings—remote-controlled
By the eyes
In his submarine swift shadowFeint and tilt in their steel.
Suddenly a triggered magnet
Connects him downward, through a thin shatter,
To a sand-eel. He hoists out, with a twinkling,Through some other wave-window.
His eye is a gimlet.
Deep in the churned grain of the roller
His brain is a gimlet. He hangs,A blown tatter, a precarious word
In the mouth of ocean pronouncements.