When the hornbills come
– all floppy great birds of them –
we see ourselves
in their rag-tag ways:
cautious on the wire
fixing all with drooping eye,
he peers down his nose;
she comes then, edging
close, her want of fruit or bread
dances with her fear.
They feed at table,
then repair to the tree top,
sunnily chatter,
hemming and hawing,
each bird through a nose-long beak.
We watch ourselves there,
and we eye each other, too.
- Brian Walter
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