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28 DODO The dodo is two feet high, and laughs. A parrot, swan-sized, pig-, scale-legged bird. Neither parrot, nor pig—nor swan. Its beak is the beak of a parrot, a bare-cheeked, wholly beaked and speechless parrot. A bird incapable of anything—but laughter. And silence: a silence that is laughter—and fact. And a denial of fact (and bird). It is a sort of turkey, only not a turkey; not anything.—Not able to sing, not able to dance not able to fly . . . —The Dutch called it the ‘nauseous bird,’ Walguögel, ‘the uncookable.’ Its existence (extinct as it is) is from the Portuguese: Duodo, ‘dumb,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘silly.’ And the story of its having been eaten on Rodrigues Island by hogs, certain sailors & monkeys: Didus ineptus. A bird that aided its own digestion, of seeds and leaves, by swallowing large stones. It has been called, though with birds (extinct or otherwise) crosses are a lie, a cross between a turkey and a pigeon. The first, it is claimed, won out; and, having won, took flight from flight (its wings but tails, gray 29 yellow tufted white). And for reasons as yet unknown. Its beak is laughter and shines, in indifference—and size. It has the meaning, for some, of wings: wings that have become a face: embodied in a beak . . . and half the dodo’s head . . . It laughs—silence, its mind, extends from its ears: its laugh, from wings, like wrists, to bill, to ears. ...

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