THE PINK CONCERN
Always yearning to see you
Always coming across other beauties on the way
But my visit is never complete
Without you
The pink beauties
Carpeting the lakes
Don’t you amaze me?
Those legs, the long necks…. aaaah!
That play among you
That dance
That sieving beak
That carefully selects your food
That though not visible to me
Determines your pink colour
Determines your each day of life
Determines your moment on earth
Wonderfully made
To withstand that I regard as harsh water
To follow your biological instinct
That directs you to your
Other pink beauties
To your source of food
To your pink maternity
Amazed ….
That when you want to bring forth
The next pink generation
You make that sacrificial
Long flight to Lake Natron
The only pink maternity
For the rest of the East African
Pink beauties
Amazed….
That what I regard as harsh
Is the ideal for you
To raise your next pink generation
Eventually colouring the soda lakes
With that pink distinct colour
Shocked….
That your pink bank – The Natron
For many generations
May be no more
WHY?
In your pink maternity
Lies the soda gold
Eyed for human wealth
But stored just an inch beneath
Your delicate and only birth place
Concerned…..
That the human interest in your maternity – The Natron
Will remove your pink colour
Even where I used to find you
Concerned…..
That this will not just remain
A Tanzanian story
But an East African disaster
For it is in Natron,
Only Natron!
That breeds our Flamingos
Will breed no more pink
But instead breed more human wealth
At the expense of your sensitivity and fragility
Worried….
That each time I see you flying
Up in the sky
Heading to the Natron
You might come back to Kenya
But minus your next pink generation
Until your are eventually wiped out
I want to endlessly see and be met
By thy pink beauty on our lakes
As your beauty spreads across borders
The flying ambassadors who unite us
Will I watch and wait
To listen when your story becomes another tale
That whenever I want to see and be met by your beauty
I have to refer to the books and peoples memories?
OR ….
Will I be the pink ambassador?
BY: CAROLINE NJOKI
Njokizimmer@yahoo.com
Lesser flamingos at Lake Natron (James Warwick)
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May 10th, 2011 at 11:58 am
very toucy poem.
May 9th, 2011 at 3:46 am
Thanks for posting on my bird lesser flamingos.
I belongs to PORBANDAR GUJARAT INDIA.Since 1969 I am photographing and observing LESSER FLAMINGO WITHIN PORBANDAR TOWN.
PORBANDAR COULD BE WORLD ONLY URBAN LOCATION WHERE at small water body ( 4 sq.KM.)on the back side of SODA AS FACTORY Lesser flamingos congregate in thousand(in 1996 I count about 4500 at one place,) and one can watch them in COURTSHIP Plumage and COURTSHIP MARCH. THIS IS ONLY BECAUSE OF THEIR MAIN FOOD GREEN ALGAE PRODUCE BY DISCHARGE OF HIGHLY SALINE WATER EFFLUENT IN THIS WATER BODY.LESSER FLAMINGOS BREEDS IN LITTLE RUN NEAR DASADA.GUJARAT JUST 300 KM FROM THIS POINT.
May 7th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Dear Carol.
Am so much touched by this particular Poem.I would wish as a conservation Biodiversity Film maker ,we continue further to make a short film along side this poem.
Bravo !!
Regards
Jackson Komen
Lake Bogoria National Reserve
May 6th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Very moving indeed! I too can feel the joy and the pain.