Quickly this fledgling bird figured out
life in a sky-sand-sea world,
risked the first breakneck plunge toward waves,
mastered the submerged reversal flip,
drained salt water from its up-thrust fish-full beak.
After that,
the dive was a matter of course.
Survival depended on doing it again,
repeated daily, again and again.
Flying in formation with avian mates,
a squadron of winged shadows
haunting the silver disk-eyed fish,
then,
instant disruption striking terror
into the surface of the deep.
And so it goes,
the pelican solving its own existential crisis
by creating a fast and final crisis for a fish.