 |
| The Author and his wife on Magdalena Island, July, 2010, exploring… |
On Magdalena
Island walking up a
narrow path I come on a dead penguin, he blends into the earth like a log. I
stand and look at him, there’s a hesitation in my live flesh: my God, a penguin
is crying side to side—he’s mourning his mate! What is this I think: grief to
God for the dead—a funeral song? Heavy breath comes out of me; my stomach feels
as if the sky is going to fall.
His head is arched back, its small eyes half closed, and he’s dying
little by little, also.
Wind blows cold ice through the air, here at the end of the world. His
little flippers look like dwarf arms. There’s a 140,000-penguins here, all in
tuxedos, moving about. I want to reach
out, touch the mourning penguin, but that’s forbidden; I simply move on.
#3854 (4-18-2013) Poetic Prose
Note: Figurative
language means words used to something that you don’t really mean, such as
“Tuxedos,” which describes the penguin’s black and white frames: skin or hides.
And “flippers like dwarf arms” for the penguin they are nearly useless and are
not arms but flippers; Darwin
called them wings, how silly could he be.
