The three-foot packhorse that Dafne brought us back from her swim barely
fit in the cannibal pot on the stove. It came out as red as the Milky Way came
on white, outside. All the other colors were waiting in our dreams.
As remote as it seemed on any map of the Pacific, the island we awoke to
was downtown Southern Sea history and myth and wonder. Robyn and I found the
first reason for this in the village cemetery, on a brass plaque with an Iron
Cross centre, and a verdigris border.
‘In treuer Pflichterfüllung für das Deutsche Vaterland starben den
Heldentod: Ing. Asp. Lerche Ober- Matr. Hunger Heizer Reuter...
S.M.S. Dresden 14 Marz 1945’
In faithful
performance of duty for the German Fatherland, died a hero. In 1915, the
only German ship to escape the Battle of the Falkland Islands scuttled herself
in Cumberland Bay, both a white flag and her war ensign flying in the wind. A
third of her crew decided to stay in Chile after the war, and their
descendents, and those of an original Swiss San Juan Bautista settler, constitute
the predominant human invasive species. Above our heads, in the face of the
overhanging cliff, were numerous large British cruiser shell holes, as well as
the back of a solitary unexploded eight-incher, still in place.
We continued up a grassy slope, through glades of cypress, conifers
and eucalyptus, into a tall lowland forest of unique white-flowered
peppery canelos and orange-fruited myrtles. Ferns lined the steep mountain
path, small at first, but growing taller and into giant Dicksonia and
Thyrsopteris tree ferns, as our trail became steeper, our footing more
difficult on the slippery volcanic rock. Our pace was unhurried, slowed further
by the peace inside the upper montane rainforest. Robyn and I floated in an
exotic landscape of luma, muchay and narajillo, pushing up from the dark, moist
forest floor, seeking sunlight. We felt cleansed, decontaminated. There came a
sudden loud raspy staccato doppler drone, rising and
falling in pitch, motoring by at the speed of sound, a bright red bumblebee on
steroids.
“There are less than two hundred left in the world.” I said. “And
they’re all here.” It came around for another supersonic pass, five inches
long, cinammon-red with slate gray wings, and an iridescent crown of emeralds
and rubies and gold.
“He’s beautiful.” Robyn said. And he was. Sephanoides fernandensis. The Juan Fernández Firecrown, the world’s
largest hummingbird. The Spanish call them picaflores.
Flower pokers.
“He’s also doomed.” I said. “They eat endangered cabbage tree
nectar, and nest in myrtles that are disappearing because of habitat loss from
human destruction, blackberry invasion, and rabbits and goats. Domestic and
feral cats are taking the last of them.” And the red bomber went by one last
time.
“From scarlet to powdered gold,
to
blazing yellow,
to the rare
ashen emerald,
to the orange and black velvet
of your shimmering corselet,
out to the tip
that like
an amber thorn
begins you,
small, superlative being,
you are a miracle,
and you blaze.”
Pablo Neruda, Ode to the
Hummingbird
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