i

Otherwise known as peewit, otherwise known
as tew-it, otherwise known as Vanellus vanellus
of the family Charadriidae, otherwise known as
plain old lappy nestling itself in the till, otherwise
known as diver found in its down in the center
of some middle-of-nowhere, otherwise known as
wailer, otherwise known as waverer, as imp,
liar, as shrill green sky, as wader of the marsh,
slope, as flock, as Tereus turned and heckling
the cows, otherwise known as crown prince,
as crest, as sharp throat, as hare, otherwise known
as zigzag, soaring, dizzy, otherwise known as lost.

ii

Otherwise known as green plover, controller
of seasons, shaman, crook, some skittish soul
turning everything it doesn’t understand into a god:
god of the long grass, god of the cuckoo bird,
god of the gloved hand, god of the drought,
god of the estate, god of the sloping roof,
god of the silver tree, god of the frost,
god of the harvest, god of the metal roar,
god of the spinning white, god of the crop,
god of the unhatched, god of the death machine.

iii

Otherwise known as nickname, posture,
as totter, raked ground. Lapwing, some sly
false flex, otherwise felt as a leap, as
tombstone shiver, as an ever-constant wince.

iv

Otherwise known as Peet-Peet-Peet. Plumage
primped and plucked to perfection, each bright
tail up like a rake, breast down, peck,
crown, otherwise known as hollow-man,
as bust-up, wing smacking the green fool that even
thinks to try his luck in these parts. Territory
as self-expression, otherwise known as belonging.
Peet-Peet-Peet. Otherwise known as showman,
as feathers, all dives and rolls and tumbles in time
to his spring song, swansong, his own pees-weep-
weep-weep. Otherwise known as seduction.

v

Birds have their demons too. Otherwise
heard as diversions. From the Latin to draw
or drag apart, Peewit has his ways of flitting,
of feigning each intended cry. Drink, violence,
no sense of direction, reneging on a promise
to mate for life, insolence. Otherwise known
as a deceit, for every short, sharp peet-peet-peet
there are ten tew-its that never catch the wind.
Here’s one with a temper under his wing. Come
cat, he shrieks, come fox, come man with his
sharp tang and featherless glove, come cuckoo,
come endless sound, come parch, come hunger,
come pluck, come blunt serrated edge, come
raging monster blocking out the clouds.

vi

To be beleaguered, Peewit, otherwise known as
migrant, otherwise known as hoopoe, otherwise
known as flicker, must first settle into humdrum.
Winter hummock, scum trail twitching on the marsh,
the hare’s breadth, exhaust cloud caught in an early
morning mist. The world keeps growing smaller.
Winnow, otherwise known as dart, otherwise caught
as a flash of white and black, pays his dues, scrapes
out the mud on a cold November Saturday, calls in
on neighbors, grubs, dozes belly-deep in the black
pond, crafts and recrafts his earlier misdeeds.

vii

Plain speech falling prey to full moons, myth
cresting through the ice. Dappled light, small
wonder. Tew-it, otherwise known as wandering
eye, displays the subtle, iridescent greens of his
carefully-preened plumage. This can work,
he reflects. Capricious order, domesticity as
an uneasy rest. As coagulant. Unearthly cries
drown out the common redshank, curlew,
each arrogant heron lording it on some nearby
log, the dull, incessant gossip of the coots:
chew-it, chew-it, chew-it.

viii

One cloudless morning she let out a short, sharp
Peet, but otherwise they copulate in silence. Smell
of dirt, of warm feather, of dead worm, otherwise
known as aphrodisiacs. The way the light falls just so.
Lapwing, otherwise known as Tieve’s Nacket,
as Toppyup, as winnowing wing, ful of treacherye.
But we all tell lies to get laid, says the lapwing chick.

ix

Otherwise known as the king of tact. Circumlocution
tricks left in a trail of dark feathers. Recorded
by the peeping ornithologist as valiance. Otherwise
known as second nature. We can all dissemble. Life
and soul, one-man party, likes a drink, up for a laugh.
See, no fuss. Heard first as a weapon, lies more closely
resemble a bedtime story. A drawn-out cry for help.

x

Fear found as flush as a clutch of speckled light,
sown spring, enough for a basket, otherwise blown
clean crest, a cap for a babe. Some precious
quartet laid open for all the world and his friend,
for some Saxon notion of betrayal. Laid on the slake,
the comfortable scratch of dead grass. Decoy, snatch,
the endless cries of alarm. Swooping as redundant
motion, birth mistaken for a harvest.

xi

Otherwise known as failed utterance, how successful
can the lying hornpie really claim to be when faced
with the report: threatened, decline, in the red. Try
winnowing through those metaphors. Tew-it,
otherwise known as plover, known to his friends
as lappy, chooses not to bury his head in the sand,
but rather to drag his beak through the earth
in concentric circles to create a great hollow world.

xii

Otherwise known as lore unto himself.
Lapwing. Such intellect, such grace, such
promise, that killer voice—the kind of reedy
tenor tipsy birds can’t help but fall for at a
house party, at picnics and evening jam sessions.
A clutch of partners, of habitats. Otherwise
known as a mosaic. Peet-Peet-Peet, otherwise
known as itchy feet, otherwise known as wind
change, as vagrant, as story keeper. Migration
offers endurance, novelty, otherwise known as
the hard-won maintenance of a myth, as survival.
Dissemblance as another breed of song.

xiii

Known first as prodigal, cracked shell, survivor
of drought, summer son, otherwise held up
as miracle, as proof of the decoy nest. First
felt as Cristatus, sole endured, first and only
to leave, as bare-crowned, damp crest, as not-
yet devoid of all faith. There could be no witnesses
to marvel. Gratitude told as a readiness to flee.
Each writhing meal, the wet-nosed dog, the circling
hawk. Cramped conditions breed contempt, the cruel
weight of sibling love. Expectation, like a cuckoo
taking shelter in the crudely scratched out nest.

xiv

Hymn for seasons. Hymn for every frame.
Hymn for births, deaths, and migrations.
Hymn for each mislaid babe, smashed egg,
snatched chick, wing trodden and crumbled
underfoot. Hymn for the cold. Hymn for
the gone. Hymn for every imagined ghost.
Hymn to ward off approaching catastrophe.
Hymn to know it. Hymn to acknowledge an
over-eagerness to feel besieged. Hymn
to recognize threat. Hymn to stay still
long enough to see it approach.

xv

Lapwing resents the accusation that never having
to exhaust every problem, every possibility, never
having to stay, means never having to discover
the hard meaning of care, of love not as a feeling,
but as a labor. There is labor enough, labeled
as necessity, labeled chance, in simply staying alive.

xvi

Brother, cousin, uncle, mate. Otherwise known
as excess baggage, as dying weight. Stillness as
a series of parries, otherwise known as the long
meaning of eschew; the same pronouncements
repenting of themselves over many years. Stillness
felt as forgetting what it means to be anything
but quarry, as collateral loss. Plucked up and restless,
Hoopoe and the gang make tracks, head south,
attend to their needs, loop back. Love as contraband,
flight as freedom smuggled over invisible thread.
There is no stopping them. Otherwise heard as no one.

xvii

With numbers in such sharp decline, with the state of
agriculture as it is, with the increased conversion of
arable land to pasture, with the use of increasingly
large machinery, with the sale of land to developers,
with the melting of the ice caps, with rising sea levels,
with habitat destruction, with weather phenomenon,
with the drainage of wet grassland and the continued
poaching of eggs for the seasonal menus of expensive
restaurants, with the hot weather leading to the early
cutting of grass for silage rather than hay, with the
resurgence of Brideshead Revisited reenacters, with
the gradual but irrevocable estrangement from those
formally known as his flock, tew-it is forced to think
about legacy. Having no solicitor, tew-it, otherwise
known as peet-peet-peet, otherwise known as Vanellus
vanellus of the family Charadriidae, acts as his own
executor, draws up his estate: twig, feather, fluff, dried shit,
corn husk, dried grass, clod, some calcified, some not. Tew-it,
otherwise known as Lapwing, otherwise known as progenitor,
cries out the names of his surviving issue: Peet-Peet-Peet.

xviii

Some plastic tag, some earmarked ground, some
ready-scraped nest. Lapwing’s young reserve
his gilded cage in twitcher’s paradise. Protection
order, otherwise known as clipped wing, otherwise
known as death knell.

xix

Litany, otherwise known as requiem, otherwise
known as send off. The last of a dying breed,
up for laugh, king of the preeners, iridescent in
his own light, the mourners peck, as they flutter up
and down on a great, invisible trampoline. Loved
in absentia, lore abounds in the hairline cracks of wings.
Father, bounder, besieged. Euphemisms fall around
like feathers. Lapwing, otherwise heard as panic,
otherwise heard as parry, otherwise heard as parent,
otherwise never seen, lays low in a neighboring field,
prepared for his readmittance to the party.

xx

Otherwise known as no reply. As silent heron,
silent hookwink, silent coot. A clear Peet-Peet
shrilled alone in a fallow field, otherwise known
as devoid. Knowledge felt as drained pond,
louring sky, slaked grass, flushed clutch, as
otherworld. Lapwing, transmuted, remains
unmoved. Vision begets sound begets touch
begets flight. Tew-it nestled in comfortable
obscurity. Hoopoe culled. Pees-wit shorn open
with the yellow crop. Knowledge as throat, as
beak, as orange foot, as sheen. Knowledge as
exacting science, as lapwing, otherwise known
as lapwing, otherwise known as lapwing, otherwise
known as lapwing, otherwise known as nothing.

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Lapwing