Non Sequitur: Improv for a Pin-tailed Whydah

The Whydah Gally, a former Ouidah slave ship captured by Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy in the Golden Age of Piracy

“Extravagance is a legitimate feature of poetry.”—Anthony Hecht

The great cities' steel arteries,

Metro, Subway, Underground, Tube,

Shànghǎi Dìtiě, Subte, Bart,

and the proverbial hill of beans,

last-farting demagogic "Duh!"

melting snow on my verandah,

mean less to me than a Pin-tailed Whydah!

Spotted in Mzansi's endless river garden,

A dance no Subway pirate could devise,*

Set against the fleecing works of man,

How priceless any day this birdie's courting prance:

repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise†

Male pin-tailed whydah, South Africa

* https://youtu.be/3RRXdPH9brI

† Elizabeth Bishop, “North Haven”

Sunday, February 16, 2025