Josie Depaol
What a prismatic array of color
I do make of you
Where blue and yellow and red meet with a green hue
What is that which you view?
The branch of which you stand upon
Might still remember you in your cast
Such a small bird with an influence so vast
But only after the last.
What do the white flowers make of you
Before you fly from view?
Because you are one of the last.
No, that must not be right.
You are after the last.
Explanation
This poem was based upon the image but also my previous knowledge of the Carolina Parakeet, which officially went extinct in 1939 but was considered extinct in 1918. The poem reflects some of my feelings of somberness that I felt looking at the painting and it triggered a reaction from me in the idea of the Carolina Parakeet was the only parrot species native to the continental United States, and many of us–if not any of us–have ever gotten to see this bird.
