Just for Her
June 28, 2017 |
| Photo courtesy Hannes Wolf |
Introduction by Ted Kooser: Here David Wagoner, a
distinguished poet living in Washington state, vividly describes a peacock
courtship, and though it’s a poem about birds, haven’t you seen the males of
other species, including ours, look every bit as puffed up, and observed the
females’ hilarious indifference?
Peacock Display
He approaches her, trailing his whole fortune,
Perfectly cocksure, and suddenly spreads
The huge fan of his tail for her amazement.
Each turquoise and purple, black-horned, walleyed quill
Comes quivering forward, an amphitheatric shell
For his most fortunate audience: her alone.
He plumes himself. He shakes his brassily gold
Wings and rump in a dance, lifting his claws
Stiff-legged under the great bulge of his breast.
And she strolls calmly away, pecking and pausing,
Not watching him, astonished to discover
All these seeds spread just for her in the dirt.
Reprinted from “Best of Prairie Schooner: Fiction and
Poetry,” University of Nebraska Press, 2001, by permission of the author, whose
most recent book is Good Morning and Good Night, University of Illinois
Press, 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. The column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
2 comments
Oh that's a good one!
ReplyDeleteCheryl--I have to admit when I choose a poem I think about you, and whether or not you might have already read it! Sometimes the newer ones I know you've seen are too good to pass up, though. Glad you liked this one.
ReplyDelete