Hog Island, Maine: Raptor Rapture
Humans come to learn,
While birds puzzle at our presense.
Are we or they the specimens?
We use scopes, bins, and lenses,
They peer from sky or secret perches.
What do they think of us?
We observe, aided by science and art,
They pose, elude, and chatter.
Are they laughing at us?
One osprey is patient at banding
By the careful hands of the biologists.
We feel the rapture we came to experience.
Enclosed on an island, we learn from tide,
From eye and ear, from others’ knowledge,
And from a sense of reverence.
We are not masters of this place,
But visitors entrusted to be here carefully.
They watch, hoping for understanding.
…by Cheryl Gaston
Writerly 