The War of the Pelicans

Mocha pelicans peeled off above the lagoon,

its dark edge furred with borders of grey-green mangrove,

to feast before dark: flap, sail and stall, nose down,

then hurtle like javelins into the glossy water

with chest-crushing blows like mailed men bluntly jousting,

each time to emerge, to pause as though dazed, to toss

the beak like a censer and gulp down whatever luckless

pouch-ensnared mullet had witlessly caught the eye

and changed a cruising glide into kamikaze.

As daylight dwindled, the muster grew more ruthless.

The birds took targets to right and left in the dusk:

tiny fish who, blinded by sunset's angle,

fluttered in woe and death.

Alongside the mangroves,

silent as border guards, strode herons, white or blue,

to audit the big birds' clash. They kept their eyes

bent low above their business, or, sentry-like,

stole glances sidewise, alert for whatever peril

might alter (behind and between the slimy roots

of the seemly mangrove, ancient shelter of herons)

a sanctuary into a weir where even the poorest

of fish would have acted the fool, in the dreadful clangor

of reddening light, to risk its earthly rest.