TWO BIRDS MEET LEWIS & CLARK (1805-1806)
            by Tom Gannon
                c. 6/23/2007
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            I: Lewis's Woodpecker

They call me Lewis's Woodpecker.
I didn't choose that name, but after millennia of me
hammering at the dead wood of these pine hills . . .
they came: with maps, and a native woman, and a
whole mind's-load of old world naturalist terms & knowledge.

In fact, I guess my real name is Latin now, but I can't even
begin to pronounce it--so just call me "Lewie," after that
guy who kept looking around and writing things down, in a
fine script, as if he were capturing my feathered soul.
I heard that he killed himself, only a few years later.
Why he did is beyond my understanding, but then,
I am only a bird.

            II: Clark's Nutcracker

Well, this Lewis fellow's sidekick was named Clark, and so
here I am, or how you know me. The only thing else you
need to know, apparently, is that I crack open
pine cones for a living.

But did you also know that my nickname is "camp robber"?
Yes, tourists, I'll steal your picnic table blind. But hey, that's
nothing, compared to what Lewis &
Clark started here, halfway on the
way to stealing a continent.


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