Cape Sable Seaside-sparrow Project

An Ode to the Cape Sable Sparrow

The following poem was composed by Tom Fucigna, in response to an article by Robert King in the Palm Beach Post. In the article, Mr. King quoted Stuart Pimm as saying that "no-one will write soppy poems about the Cape Sable Seaside-sparrow" as they have about the Nightingale, etc.

To prove Stuart wrong:

An Ode to the Cape Sable Sparrow

Ammospiza maritima or A. nigrescens,
By the Post and Pimm and Peterson my Mission is defined
And now not flood nor fire can distract me
From soppy verse,
For there's no fate worse
Than extinction without poetry to fly on.

I read with strict amazement
How you have become the center
Of a gyre,
Slowly spinning,
Slowly seeping
Down the drain lands.

The darkest seaside sparrow
Has kindled fires of digression
From the center of the topic
In your homelands,
Through the River of Grass Marjorie immortalized.

Our only seaside sparrow,
You dwell in grasslands drab,
Pocked by plumes and gaudy shirts and tales so colorful,
Greener above and white below
Beyond the drab horizon.
Beneath azure skies you dwell
In blissful ignorance.

And although you weigh but feathers,
You draw the heaviest hitters
And criticism sharp;
So unexpected
To one who struggles only to define you.

With water, water everywhere, and no time left to think,
Your battle will wage on
Among cash and good intentions.
Slowly flying, slowly dying,
While the lifeblood of the River drains
Past the sawgrass bent in discontent.
Let us pray the pen is mightier than those blades.

Ammospiza maritima or A. nigrescens
I salute you
In verse and prose and sopping wet boots.
Fly high, and a bit faster,
For time is nipping at our heels.
Choose your nest sites wisely,
And Godspeed.

Tom Fucigna