Ostrich

Comedy attends the Patagonian rhea

From its random nest (the scarce depression

Where hens distraites drop great blue eggs

For an anxious male to cherish)

To the unwieldy running flight

Of a loosely-shaking bunch of feathers;

Abortive wings that balance

Great-footed legs uplifted:

Reminiscent of the days of Avis,

When the Bird possessed the Earth, the Air, the Water.

Fleet, so fleet, the rhea .

Once dwelt fitly

With guanaco and the swift Tehuelche,

Wild horses and wild riders,

Bandits in flight for borders,

And winds that rush incessant

Across the tapering continent

From ocean on to ocean.

But today, of what avail is fleetness?

Leagues of fence-wire net the pampa.

Uniforms police the border.

The Indian has died a-coughing.

The horse is branded with surrender.

Guanaco's hunted.

The woolly meek have entered on their heritage.

Patagonia is Sheep-land.

The awkward ostrich lingers

Past his day,

To lay a rare bone fossil

In horizons ruled by Common Ovis.