Dodo

Once upon a time,
When the world was just a pancake.
Dave Matthews, "Dodo"

Like a blackened sun on the horizon,
malignant cell,
the thing drew nearer to me,
grew larger, and then
beautiful.

A ship.
I learned the word
from him, the red-bearded being,
who smelled of fish and smoked tobacco,
the man - another word I later learned.

I met him on the beach
with joyous cries, cackles, trills,
garlands weaved out of my own feathers,
the softest down, plumage
as delicate as the dawn,
and fruit, so much fruit, he could have sated forever
his emaciated imagination.
In the evening, by the wild flicker of his fire,
I danced for him a little dance
no foreigner had ever witnessed before,
naked now, molting, unabashed
by his brazen eyes.

I was that lonely.

Then I became his tour guide,
his favorite bird and companion.
I took him around my pancake island -
northeast, southwest, underground
in the nacreous caves, the forests primeval,
wherever he wished,
showed him the melodious
rippling fresh springs and brine pits,
the brightest of non-poisonous berries
I unpinned in his mouth,
and introduced him even to my friends,
the Rodrigues Solitaire and the Broad-billed Parrot,
who liked him well enough.

Paradise, he said one day, this is paradise,
and kissed me on the beak.
What is paradise?
I crooned back, searching his eyes
for an answer.
You're such a Dodo, he told me,
and the name stuck.

Years passed. Happiness did not last.
More ships arrived, more
red-bearded men and some
beardless women.
They began chopping down trees, eating
berries indiscriminately,
the criminals.
Reports came that my cousins were killed.
Someone cut the vocal cords of the springs.

What has happened to my world, squeezed
into a ball,
people spreading like cancer to the poles?
Even my own man, whom I loved so much,
has taken to drink, to gambling.
I do my little dance for him
to cheer him up, but
he only grunts like a pig.

So be it. I've packed my bags,
my feathers, ready to waddle off.
There's only one more thing to do.
I scribble on a piece of paper,
"Off to Wonderland,"
and I slam the door.