(homage to Ogden Nash)

See the buzzard soar, the swallow skim a lake, the kestrel hover;
observe the skylark pouring his little heart out in the sky;
admire the flapwing, lapwing flight of a flock of plover;
what birds do is fly.

At least they oughter,
because once birds get onto the water
they can't help looking absurd
– except the swan, for which nobody I know has an unkind word,
or, mostly, seagulls,
who fly with almost the grace of eagulls,
and in their silvery-white uniforms are impeccably neat,
even if my admiration for their manners is incomplete –
but, shucks,
look at ducks.

And for something really silly,
shaggy-winged, fluffy-headed, and disproportionately
                                                                ­                   neck-and-bill-y,
consider the pelican, for heaven's sake.
Surely Nature made a mistake,
or left the designing of it to a particularly inept committee,
it's so unpretty.
But once in the air he can soar like a buzzard, though maybe lower,
and skim over the waves with more perfect control
                                                                ­        than a swallow, and slower,
and dive for a fish like a living javelin, that clumsy pelican.
By helican!

No, for a shapeless, hapless caricature, created to be comical,
the epitome of what a bird shouldn't be, the penguin
                                                             must be the most epitomical.
As he does his impression of a Charlie Chaplin waiter,
you know he'll fall off the ice sooner or later.
But before a warning can escape your lips
he trips
(and slips).
Then, as he slides beneath the waves, ah! See the happy penguin fly,
A graceful bird in his greenblue underwater sky.