Yes, like the way it got there, Max.
Doug
On Mar 12, 2014, at 2:57 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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.
>>
>
Douglas Barbour
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