Kate Foley
Somebody has travelled thousands of miles to find the wren babbler
Kate Foley reading Somebody has travelled thousands of miles to find the wren babbler 
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all of four inches long. Not much bird
to find in a Himalayan forest.
Last seen sixty years ago.
How did he know where to look? –
because of course it was a he, of the anorak persuasion –
an upmarket twitcher,
expensively equipped by a merchant bank
wanting a new logo.
One very, very long, powerful lens,
with night vision,
one tent, lightweight and bristling with zips,
and sundry zap-in-a-bag comestibles.
What patience,
combing
all the liquid leaves,
sifting the light,
listening.
What faith.
Like the Prince in the forest,
was he about to give up
when he heard that disproportionate babbling? –
such a lot of noise for such a little bird –
and his eye flew with that grain of iron oxide
tumbling through the leaves?
Wasn’t this quest as profoundly useless
as writing a poem?
I don’t know whether I feel most tender
to the bird
or the man.
Page(s) 37
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