Memo To Outer Life

"For ten years I followed the peregrine. I was possessed by it. It was a grail to me. Now it has gone. The long pursuit is over. Few peregrines are left, there will be fewer, they may not survive. Many die on their backs, clutching insanely at the sky in their last convulsions, withered and burnt away by the filthy, insidious pollen of farm chemicals. Before it is too late, I have tried to recapture the extraordinary beauty of this bird and to convey the wonder of the land he lived in, a land to me as profuse and glorious as Africa. It is a dying world, like Mars, but glowing still."

From The Peregrine by J.A Baker (available from NYRB Classics)

Comments

[Outer Life]

I ordered one, expect it any day now. Meanwhile I eagerly await its arrival, my glands salivating at the thought of digging into it.

The book, not the bird.