Five After John James Audubon, by Margo Davis

Snowy Owl by John James Audubon (USA, b. Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) 1827-38

​Face Off
   
Spent, I sink into my snowcapped
comfy chair when

I’m confronted by that Audubon print
of two cautious owls

perched on slick limbs on a splotchy  
stump. I rest my gaze

on an unblinking owl in the foreground
with mottled markings

shaped like bats in flight. Penetrating
eyes clock me as if

I’m easy prey. Who I think, who is
predator, who is

prey? I can’t break away. Each waits
out the other’s blink.  

Purple Grakle by John James Audubon (USA, b. Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) 1827-38

​Anytown, USA

Fella, quit drilling for insects
on my grille, your guttural readle-eaks
a perfect rusty gate soundtrack.

I detect a wee swagger. Flaunt
those purple highlights in your deep green
tail feathers. The naturalist Audubon

wrote of Purple Grakles chased,
stolen upon, and killed in great numbers,
yet here your plague congregates

nearly two hundred Novembers since,

tracking the ground for crumbs
from crosshatched power lines in a dense
intersection. That’s where I perch,  

see, the fiftieth floor, all that glass
making me glassy eyed. I want grub too,
soft corn tacos you might scarf up,

only flat, pulverized. I challenge,
only two miles away as the crow flies,
tossing a bite from my lunch sack.  

Carolina Parrot by John James Audubon (USA, b. Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) 1827-38

​Extinction

Audubon feared for the exuberant Carolina Parakeet--
parrots he called them— its vibrant plumage sport
for sportsmen preying on targets, reducing it by half,
half its size in five short years. Tell me, what sport in
supporting massacre, kindness confused for weakness
as weakly the parrot tended its injured flock who fell when
felled from cocklebur branches, the irksome squawking
in fact squawks warning the others. Steer clear! By half!
Half remaining in five years’ time. Forced to migrate
as swarms of migrating honeybees settled in their trees,
teasing from the trees thinning flocks railroaded
by railroad cars, reduced agriculture, and city life
citified. And by 1918, the native parrot, extinct.
​

Zenaida Dove by John James Audubon (USA, b. Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) 1827-38

Devotional
      
Audubon, did the sudden snap of a
bird-laden limb quicken your pulse?
Could you remain calm during forty-mile walks
despite unexpected rumblings in dense brush,
elephantine in girth, instilling fear in
flocks? Many shed feathers that carpeted  
growth. What were you made of then?
Hopefully stalwart, peppered with a curiosity
I lacked when, heart in reed-thin throat,
John James, I panicked, rushing in circles
known, clearly marked, along a one-mile path.
Loops a small child could walk, eyes closed.
Mercy, I have embarrassed myself, but
not before I tripped and tumbled
over sawdust –pulverized wood, John--
pulp that I feared bears, a mother and cub, no
question, would soon make of me. Couldn’t  
rest until I stood in the open, on concrete
surface –a rock hard layer atop earth--
terrifying as a coffin lid if boxed in
underground. Which returns me to the
vultures I kept a few ungainly flaps ahead of.
What I could only hear magnified ten-fold.
Xyst be damned. I flew, from where? to?
yearning for a safe pathway. Oh, ground me
Zenaida Dove in grasslands. Gentle, love.
​

Red-tailed Hawk by John James Audubon (USA, b. Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) 1821

Marauders

The male red-tailed hawk
fights with its mate over a hare
as if the two don’t share eggs
in a nest built from twigs
and moss in a massive nearby
Oak. Fair game, each screamer
presumes, that hare hanging
in the female’s talons. She won’t
give in or up, soft white breast
exposed to his prowess. Nest
and eggs soon to be found
upended, the massive oak
felled by a Creole farmer
fueled with short-lived revenge.
That grand mangeur de poules
had swooped down and lifted
the farmer’s fattened chicken.
Before that, squirrels for stew
then their duckling. The farmer
must slaughter the hawk else it
pluck up Emile, his petit fils. 

Margo Davis
​
Editor's note: John James Audubon lived a life obsessed with the natural world, especially birds, and his ornithology and artistic work are an important legacy. His life inspired the story of bird conservation efforts, with women at the forefront, starting the Audubon Society in 1905 with that purpose.  Audubon was also a slave owner, a morally repugnant act. The Audubon people today do not dismiss this reprehensible fact as a matter of the times, pointing out that many people chose not to participate in slavery, or spoke up for abolition. Learn more about Audubon's life at https://www.audubon.org/. 

Margo Davis is a poet who loves to photograph. Or is that the reverse? Many of her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review. Both poems and pics were featured at a 2024 artists' exhibit at Buinho Residency in Portugal. A recent poem was featured in Passager and a photo, in Equinox Journal. Her forthcoming poetry collection Uncoupling (Lamar Press), is due out in 2026. Margo barely unpacks before planning her next trip.