The Switching/Yard

Blind

64 Blind Whooping Crane Trust, Grand Isle, Nebraska Shut off the car and walk down the mud path. Tape the camera—no chrome, they’ll think it’s a gun. No bright colors, read the rules. 6:45 am March 29, 2011, we walk like deer to the blind— 3 women in blankets, head down and big boots, folding in on ourselves like swans—no, like deer/ The quiet is the food of it all—great relief to not say, not say. ♦ In the blind: door made of planks with knotholes, dirt floor. Close the rope latch. Frost inside the blind, the 2 × 3 inch windows viewfinder to the Platte. A rawhide strip pulls up the cut plexiglass on a hinge: hinge to air, hinge to light. 500,000 sandhill cranes fill the river for spring staging—in packs, in lines of family, the return. Here to eat, replenish, move on. ♦ They’ve been in the river all night to avoid predators/now ready to liftoff for a day of eating/sleeping/mating/playing. The guard birds/frost on their wings/like they’ve stood there for years/not overnight in the cold ice. Now the location calls: head tilted up in one loud blast. The gathering of wings, jumping and hopping, back and forth/ back and forth—assume the intend-to-fly position: point in the direction of flight/head and neck nearly horizontal— ♦ Building air fullness what is seen the feathers what is seen the fluttering 65 the air pulling the honking now and wide: split/open/air liftoff having felt this felt this ♦ Spindle-leg crane, I am nothing. Red-beaked walker in the mud of the Platte, you fill the sky and I, great human, am hiding in the shed in the brown brush. ♦ Watching you, I return to my feathers, my tattoo of name, the place call that won’t stop— go go go go go go gone ...