Mercy
Pelicans don’t trust me. They unsettle
when I near, then rise in unison to fly
down the coast. Do they know
I found one thrashing on the beach
at La Boca? His torn pouch against
a silent, white throat. One wing wrenched
at the shoulder, quills snapped; the tip
bent back at an angle. Mottled feathers flared
skyward. He kept trying to fly. Flapping
his good wing, only to contort his squat body
and coat it in sand. One good swing
of a rock didn’t crush
his skull. I kept at it until
it was done. Left him for vultures
and the tide. His topaz eye, the sun
burning me. The rock still in my hand.
Andean Condor
You’re black gloss tracing the valley north
Mount Fitz Roy a distant gash
in the blue as you ride
thermals in widening arcs,
wingtips flared. On this jagged cliff
high above El Chaltén, the wind
jostles and jolts, holds me on the precipice
of groundlessness, the possibility
of Hanan Pacha realm of gods and celestial
bodies. Listen:
scratch of dragonfly, whirr of grass, this
dead tree shivering beside me, alive
with insects and air. If I step off, will you
carry me? Or leave me falling, shadow
swelling, becoming earth? Sacred bird, sage of the Inca
meet me on the threshold silent feeder, bone cleaner.
Blue Morpho
Almost tattooed a blue morpho
on my ass when I was twenty
could have carried it a talisman
for flight or transformation
exotica encoded in the luminous hues
of my gypsy fantasies I painted
my bedroom Starry Night blue
sought out reflected light
found it in the eyes of every man
I ever loved the haint
hovering above hyacinth doors
in the Willka Qhichwa teal rapids
on the Baker River cobalt ice
dotting the Weddell Sea
I’ll never know all the names
or shades I’m a geography lesson
bound to blue at the equator
where desert and jungle
meet ocean where morphos
float and fall in flight
their undersides eyespotted
and beige when resting close-winged
camouflaged on the forest floor
Butterfly Migration: Manabí, Ecuador
They confetti May mornings in white.
Bleached wings skim bamboo swoop
down the coast dodging wires and walls.
A breeze catering to chaos lifts
drops lifts them again. In my bones
an instinct antennaed to their wake
apprenticed to the semantics of quiver
and whirr ready for the next
current wherever it takes me. Wind picks up
fronds rustle percussive. Everything is moving:
hibiscus amaryllis even the aloe
shudders. I abide in the ticker tape
eddy a flock of one.
Anne Hampford lives on the coast of Ecuador but still calls Connecticut home. Her poetry is informed by her love of nature, animals, and wandering. She has traveled to six continents and can fake her way through several languages.
Header photo by Ann Boulais, courtesy Pixabay. Photo of Anne Hampford by Frédérique Tiéfry.
