The Okinawa Rail

The Okinawa rail is a rare, flightless bird and not

a Japanese train company.  It was discovered

in 1981 and is endemic to Okinawa-Hontou

and apart from its name and its pink gristly legs

affords little scope for the humour that is

the potential of every sad poem.  It was discovered

in 1981 but not until yesterday by me, and only

in A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Japan

And North-East Asia by Tadao Shimba.  It’s got

a funny beak, I suppose, and it can climb trees

which is a good thing, given the promise of more

giant waves.  Not because trees stand much chance

when whole tuna-fishing fleets perch half-way

up small mountains of broken everything, but

a bird that climbs trees but can’t fly is an indication

that evolution works both ways, or is a multi-

functional penknife, one with a blade and a screw-

driver.  It opens up the possibility that man

can again lose and find himself in a subtropical

island forest, be petrified not by moving earth

and water but by a retarded thirty centimetre

bird and what Shimba describes as ‘loud and rapidly

repeated kek-kek-kek-kek calls at night.’