Lovers who must identify the stars,
we talk about the difference
between loons and cormorants.
Both are black, both dive,
but the latter has a straighter profile,
no white revealed
when it flies, and none
of those eerie, punctuated cries.
You do not want
to believe that the birds rising
up before the prow of our boat
are the same birds
that holler from the woods.
Aren’t loons reclusive,
unwilling to be seen
while cormorants are difficult to scare?
Isn’t witnessing the ascent of a loon
like discovering a treasure?
We scan the seas for silhouette or code
to relieve the vast expanse
that comes between us,
what we know and cannot know.
Copyright © 1999 by
Joyce Wilson.
