Topography with Storm Petrels & Arctic Tern

On our first television set, a black & white,    the screen a square about the size of a trivet,       my brother and I watch Van Gelderen sketch an arctic tern. First, the circle of the head,    its thick outline pointing toward the spiked       prong of the beak, which, all in one stroke, gives to the sleek curves of a throat that veers    sharply toward the taut belly, then rises,       splits into the twin prongs of the tail. And then the back, then the wings opening.    All of this happens at near double-speed,       the fingers furious in their markings after the charcoal's brief hover above the page.    And now, his flits and feints having       shaded out the only eye that's visible, the glut of dark feathers around the crown,    some sleight of hand, or trick of editing,       transmogrifies this stationary male into a bird at wing above the outcroppings    and crags of Inis Mór. Holding its own       against the catch and drag of air, it looks just like those two gray-brown storm petrels    in Audubon's watercolor—one of fifty       on display this week uptown. Already, I've spent most of two afternoons wondering    if they're rival lovers or a mating pair,       one facing me, the other turned away, their eyes fixed on each other in a gaze    that can only mean hatred or ardor.       And what they seem to say, strung up just so, hanging forever between heaves of gale,    is something about balance, about grace       faced with the great weight of the elements. According to Edward Armstrong, we know    that during daylight birds use the sun to find       their way, and that at night they rely on the stars. It's thought that they may orient themselves    using the earth's gravity, but there are aspects       of how birds navigate that remain obscure. Enough then to admire whatever drives    the wings, that heart no bigger than the tip       of your middle finger, whatever name there is for the desire that keeps the tern facing    forward as it glides between hemispheres,       north to south and south to north again. On his stalled crossing from Portsmouth,    Audubon could not paint those storm petrels       as they hovered just above a cursive wave. Instead, he spent those wild days below deck    heaving the contents of his fraught stomach       into a laundry pail, trying hard to forget it could be weeks before Liberty stuck her    arm out of the fog, the Colombia bobbing       like a pink buoy, its jolts and jars dousing the flame in his paraffin lamp, stirring    whatever winged subject he carried home—       a tree pipit perhaps or a chaffinch—to fix its claws around the cage's bars and hold.    In a Carna we will soon leave behind, so       that something small and feathered in us dies, it is the year my brother and I find a jackdaw    with a broken wing, the year the fish farm       where our father works closes its doors. The tanks in the hatchery are emptied of oysters,    the mussel rafts are dragged ashore, and most       of what we know vanishes like the wallet and keys the magician picks from our old man's    pockets as he assists with a trick at the circus,       choosing a card, checking a bowler hat for holes. Although all we know will never be returned.    Lying on his bunk, nothing left in his stomach       but a sticky yellow bile, Audubon stares through the iced porthole at the almost black that runs    beyond the eye and thinks of how his life       will be a journey from one fixed point to another with only open water in between, something    he ought to take no pleasure in, yet the knowledge       of it makes him almost happy. The chaffinch is dying behind the bars and, in the morning,    will be tossed overboard without even a thought.       And though Audubon will recover from this, his latest bout of the blue devils, he'll continue    to suffer the erosions of the body until he can       no longer lift a finger to enter the...