We come to the table
wearing our agencies, committed
to bring back a warbler,
Dendroica cerulea,
from the presumed spiral of its demise…
to conjure significant landscape—
the arching hardwood canopy
of sunlight, shadow, and space
that gifts this bird its green canyons
from which to plummet unannounced
like a fragment of heaven
into a waif body barely weaned
left homeless on the forest floor.
When you cradle this lost creature in your arms,
when you look into the receding blue of its eyes,
you understand
that there is not much time left,
that every act of wonder and caring
must count.
Perhaps only three hundred thousand pairs of wings
are left
to carry the sky across continents
and inspire gestures of benevolence
on their behalf.
We prune the forest just so,
adjust a net or balance an equation,
arrange a meeting in another language,
search the dense foliage
or listen for the ascending song
that promises
that these birds will remain our guardians
as we adjust our course
from the edge of helplessness
toward the center of faithful action.
—Tom Will
Tom Will is a wildlife biologist and founding member of the Cerulean Warbler Technical Group.