HUMBOLDT
Everything passed tranquilly till eleven at night; and then a noise
so terrific arose in the neighbouring forest that it was impossible to close our eyes.
A greeting or a farewell?
That evening when he camped
at the river’s edge and unpacked his notebooks
from the heaped baggage, as darkness rose from the tangled
rooted floor, and drove upward to rekindle the stars,
the explorer, scientist, and gentleman heard
for the first time the night chorus of the inhabitants
of the rain forest: it was the feast of the full moon,
the guides reported, for monkey, for cougar and for jaguar,
for peccary, and for sloth, for parakeet and turkey-bird:
they shouted their territory, like the gabble of an auctioneer
whose hammer, like dawn, would strike them silent
suddenly. Their first objection, and their last hurrah:
gossiping and complaining, and shouting the odds
till the good man commanded, and helplessly pair by pair
they entered their attitudes of study against the glass
as the human flood began, and their own kind floated away.....
