What Is a Pelican?

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What Is a Pelican?

By Matthew James Babcock

      after Susan Elizabeth Howe’s “What Is a Grackle?”

From the ground, a particle wave

crossing humid noon. Stern sage

in repose among the moorings,

tourists murmuring concessions

into coffee cups. In motion,

a Da Vinci diagram streaming

in daydream stage. Pelicans unfurl

more than ascend, launch

like unbound manuscripts

hurled into headwinds. Their wingspans

plane edges from storms.

Presume a uniform procession,

and they assume more roles

than the red horizon holds:

staunch reformer, serene wingman,

ascetic in the senate of sky,

outfitted with the evolutionary wonder

of gold cutlass and swag bag,

the endless sunrise in the mage’s eye.

Adopt one as cosmic consort,

or anoint your dozing confessor.

Recall the stately white male scarcely

audible on the mirror lake— 

lull, charm, and descant: Stay stoic,

came the telepathic trace. You are

the marble before the temple. Always

sculptor and sculpture in the air,

the everlasting space spanning here and there. 

Philosophy of the Pelican

            the three creeds

The needless thought ever encumbers.

The seedless heart never numbers.

The heedless soul forever slumbers.

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