Professor Stephen T. Emlen of Cornell University in the planetarium. (The indigo buntings are in the funnels around the projector.)
Photo courtesy of Cornell University.
Caught in their funnels,
the indigo buntings
have no choice
but looking up.
There,
the North Star
clings to a dome
from which the sea air
is missing.
It is always night:
the time of flying.
With inked feet,
the birds stamp out
the direction
of desire,
furiously marking
the ancient route
towards birth
or away from it.
Everything hinges on a single
point of certainty
and its few attendant
clusters of stars.
The scientist pulls a star
from the known sky
then another
and another
so that the Little Dipper
disconnects from its center
and Cassopeia dissolves away
from the reassuring “W”
children know.
The birds watch
the final constellations
ground down into a grit
of random stars
any one of which
may lead
to an island
in an ocean
somewhere beneath their feet.
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Emlen, S.T. 1975. The stellar-orientation system of a migratory bird. Scientific American, (Cover story) 233:102-111.
