Past death into legend, powerful final line, Max.
Bill
> On 12 Mar 2014, at 12:08 pm, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> New Zealand birds? I've known
> a few - alive - the kiwi;
> extinct - the upright moa;
> both flightless, emblematic.
>
> The kea - notorious thief,
> the mutton-bird, the more-
> pork; fan-tail, tui
> (once called parson-bird).
>
> But (kept from me
> till late in life, at home
> passive with tv) - Haast's
> eagle! - Pouakai -
>
> in company with David
> Attenborough
> and a moa
> resurrected by night
>
> in the Museum of
> Natural History!
> A few bones, a lot
> of special effects -
>
> look out! Haast's eagle
> swoops low at us
> and veers off to almost
> catch the moa!
>
> They say the Maori
> hunted down the moa -
> to extinction -
> at which the eagle
>
> likewise vanished.
> The human need
> for protein was maybe
> the force responsible.
>
> Maori? well, they fell back
> on smaller birds, fish,
> and the occasional
> captured enemy.
>
> In my mind's eye
> I see Haast's
> unlucky last
> swoop to clutch
>
> (for lack of a moa)
> a plump Maori child;
> Pouakai they hunted
> past death into legend.
>
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