Birdtober Day Eleven: Magnificent Frigatebird

Source: eBird

Source: Wikipedia

I saw this bird twice in Haiti. It is very large and unmistakable, and I was excited to see it. Apparently it has a less-than-magnificent habit of making other birds throw up their food and then eating their vomit. Christopher Columbus wrote about this in his journal; we know because his priest, Bartolomé de las Casas, preserved the account. Las Casas is the one of the first who suggested bringing laborers from elsewhere because the treatment of islanders by Columbus and his men was so heinous. Las Casas argued that the islanders had souls, though few others agreed with him. (Las Casas later said that he believed all slavery was wrong.) In my poem, I question whether some things are quite as magnificent as we've been told. 

Columbus criticized the Magnificent Frigatebird

for taking food it hadn't caught

from the stomach of other birds.

Las Casas criticized Columbus

for taking islanders as slaves

and believing they had no souls.

History criticizes las Casas

because the transatlantic trade in human beings

was his brainchild.

There's lots of criticism to go around

and much less magnificence

than you might have thought.

©Ruth Bowen Hersey