Ornithology

Sophocles calls birdwatching a hallmark of men;

it jostles beside language, law, ethics, navigation.

What could he have meant? Augury? Love

of elusive difference? The pagan proclivity for fauna?

The zoomorphy of myth? I surmise too

the power of naming, Eve dreaming

in the apple-scented grip of our genesis.

Chris Agee