PART 2 | Field Notes of Wonder: poetry series with poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil, ft. Roseate Spoonbill

For our second installment of Field Notes of Wonder: a poetry series with New York Times Bestselling poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil, we’re featuring everyone’s favorite pink North American bird—the Roseate Spoonbill. As part of the series, Audubon commissioned 4 new poems all themed around birds and wonder! Roseate Spoonbill His bill like the last blush of watermelon rind you toss away to horses and pigs. My son was the first of us to see it in Tampa, how it swept its ladled mouth through the shallows as if stirring a pot of duckweed soup. Who taught this bird to be both ridiculous and holy? To wear a Florida sunrise without apology? Let me be this unafraid of hunger, desire, of being seen—even when my flock gets scattered, even when all I can see to the horizon is mud and muck, and the occasional crawfish stepping out from under an upturned rock.