Black-Necked Stilt

Because I did not know the bird
I looked at, I memorized its features—

the stately black neck; the thin
black beak and long rose-pink legs;

the white of its underside and eyebrows
in contrast to its dark back

and small black-capped head.
And because another bird-watcher stopped

just then and said, Black-necked stilt, then went on—
the name so matter-of-factly matching the bird,

as if Adam himself were giving it
for the first time—I said, Thank you, and sat down

on a bench to look again at the elegant stilt,
its tapered beak working like chopsticks to lift shrimp

and minnows from the water. The bird gave me
all the time I needed. I’m sure it was just doing

what it did each evening, like the ibises arrowing in
groups of six and eight to roost in the mangroves

or the wood storks on their last go-round,
the water shimmering in twilight colors—pinks,

lavenders, orange reds. Nothing at all
out of the ordinary, but the only two words

I’d spoken in the last two hours still echoed
in my head, filling me with the overwhelming sense

of why we give thanks for what we’re given,
even so simple a thing as a name.