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Reprise I know them, their shapes & movements, their differing attitudes of being still. I dream of balancing on the air & when I wake it is to their noise, musings that lift to raucousness. I have followed them where no other man has gone, have shot & ate them, or pierced & posed them on wires for Drawing, have named & made them famous. I know that a cormorant flies over water only, illustrating in the sky the sinuous routes of rivers, I know pelicans fly low until approaching land, at which they rise above gun range. I know Herons contained will bite each other to death. I have given a young dove corn mush from my mouth else it would not eat. Have cooked up a fish I found in the belly of a Pelican, fresh swallowed, though Lehman gagged & would have none. Have found the gannet provides black & unpleasant meat. Have used the Grease of ducks to keep my lips from cracking in the cold. I know them and they me, at least some ways, so that a Gull hovers to watch me eat but retires if I am crossed with the burden of a long gun. I have Acquired them without a shot, have filled the calixes of flowers with sweet wine so that the hummingbird falls, intoxicated. I woke once to find a bittern on my bedpost & wanting not to rouse the lodgers or damage the Inn I whacked him with a broom. I know Anhingas by the wheeze they make in sleep. I rate the Mockingbird first for song, her rivals the tawny & hermit thrushes, Catbird, Blue grosbeak. The churr & chuck of blackbirds is my work song. Stiff pointed wings of hawks produce 56 a whistling sound, & blunt Ducks wings whir. I have heard my shot strike the Frigate bird in flight & then the slapping of its wings in the disorder of mortal fall. Others I have saved & gave live to friends with severalresults, a red egret that ate kitchen scraps & was gentle in the parlor and the cranes Bachman killed & stuffed because they first ripped ducks apart, then speared a cat to the sunny ground on which it slept, & last began to stalk his youngest child. I once saw Gallinules in Regents park, in London. Nearby some men with Ladies fed swans & fat tame ducks, all of them making a fuss. So be it. I regret these labors only for thy absence. Why must I choose? No, I do not. You attend me. I know the Lady of the Waters, the Louisiana heron with step so light it leaves no impression in the sand. I am with others—I do not turn from company— but when I am alone thy pressure on my mind appears, thy look, though none sees, & I travel lightly, by thee enabled. 57 ...

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