Timid Roos

Tinamous are walking birds,
And less a flock and more a herd –
For they are nested in the clade
Of ratites, who are flightless-made.
They stalk the woods and grassy prairie
Like the unflown cassowary,
And we find great kinship here
With emu cousins, and the rhea.
And yet, the timorous still fly –
Although in truth they rarely try,
And much prefer to run away
That take to clumsy flight, they say.
So do they ever look around
At ratites, stranded on the ground,
To see how each evolved this trait
Quite independently of late ?,
And wonder if their future lies
In never taking to the skies…?
Or do they fear a coming trend
Where they grow fat and can’t ascend ?
It’s evolution pulls the strings
And robs the kiwi of its wings,
But also builds the ostrich tall –
Will tinamous yet hear the call ?

Day 18 – Flightless – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry

A Noseful of Notice

Mammals sweat – it’s our superpower,
But boy, does it make us pong !
Our glow is wafting, musk is humming
Ev’rything can smell us coming…
Mammals sweat – we’re a perfumed flower,
That likes to come-on strong –
We love to run our engines hot,
Yet keep our cool (an awful lot…)
Mammals sweat, but lizards cower,
Basking all day long –
They warm so slow, they barely blink,
But thinking quick will raise a stink.
Mammals sweat – unless we shower,
Then our whiff goes wrong –
But rest assured our nat’ral scent
Cannot be silenced, as we vent.

Day 8 – Stinky – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry

        Aero-Bats

Why can bats fly ?
And I don’t mean at all,
I mean still ?
Why have they never gone ostrich or penguin,
But never stopped flapping, so upwards-ascending,
Refusing to temper their skill ?
There’s plenty on islands without all the predators,
Plenty of time for their genes to face editors,
Yet, to their credit, their urge to grow lazy is nil.
Though perhaps that’s unfair on the dodos and fleas,
Who have repurposed bodies to new strategies –
So their airborne commitment to natural fitment,
Is not simply down to sheer will.
The pterosaurs never turned flightless either,
At least from the fossils we’ve found –
It seems that neither stuck to the ground.
I wonder if it’s all down to their puny legs,
Unlike the biped birds,
That stops them forming roaming herds,
Or burrowing into the hill ?
The membranes, though, of their wings attach
To their nether-limbs – is maybe a catch
To developing muscles down there with a kick ?
They just aren’t quick enough for the kill.
Though evolution is ever the tweaker –
The pika-pika can forage and scramble
With hardly a gamble or grounding or snafu –
While vampire bats, they can even run if they have to !,
Yet flying remains their thrill.
I guess it continues to work well enough,
So I guess they continue with flying and stuff,
And we all have our niches to fill.