Désirée Fitzgibbon

My artist statement is in the form of a short story:

Song for the crested tern

The morning opened onto shimmering blue water, Matisse blue skies, stillest of days. Dancer and I walked the shore early, the line of the tide etching a tracery on the map of the beach, the line broken on this particular morning by the shape of a lone fledgling, a tern, on the rim of the water. Head resting back, beak opening and closing on the air, it bobbed there, a scribble of flotsam on the incoming tide. I checked for a parent bird, none in sight. Fragile, weak and barely alive it called me to attention. I gathered it up, wrapped it in my shirt tail - the feathered lung breathing against my body urged us homeward. I cradled it and sang please don't die; please don't die, as we mounted the bank. I crooned live to fly, live to skim the tepid waters, live to feel the rush of wind folding back as you plummet and soar, your slender wings arcing graceful swallow dives across the seas.

The day unraveled into phone calls, droppers filled with water, futile attempts at feeding. I held and prayed over crested tern as it thrust its head back and tenderly embraced death's angel.

The afternoon was baking hot as I carried the now stilled heart in its cage of fragile bones back to the shoreline. I wept as I placed it on the unbroken line of the tide. I wept for lost children, stranded pilgrims, wounded critters.

I thought I could save you lone traveler. I thought you alive, I thought you free on the wing. I sang you to live in the morning, and I sang you away on the receding waters. I sang you back again, each day, as you entangled the line on the shore with your loss. I sang your wingspan oh so wide, I sang each pure white feather, each mottled grey and black prayer. I sang your tufted head, your straight beak, your webbed feet. I sang your forked tail, sea swallow. I sang your genus sterna, I sang your species berguii.

Each day you left me, each day you returned.

And then I took you to the eroded bank and tenderly splayed you on the green fingers of pigface. Crucified there you float on a memory of song.

I walk the timeline. I trace the tide line. I explore the liminal zone. I sing for the Crested Terns, Silver Gulls, Pardalotes. I sing heartliy for White Breasted Sea Eagle. I trill for the Orange-bellied Parrot. I hum for frog and skink, Yellow Chat, Boggomoss Snail. I intone for whale a sonata. A canto for you Beluga, white mermaid of the Amazon. An opera no less for old growth trees, a solo for the last black-tipped spider orchids. A love song for elephants, white tigers, wolves. I cantillate rivers, oceans, raincloud, mist. Yodelling up the coral reefs. Crooning up the Mbuti of the Uturi forest, the Shuar in the rainforest. I chant up sailing vessels, handmade pots, homegrown food. Up come the quolls, the Christmas beetles, ten brave Tasmanian tigers. Chanting up salmon, clean pure water, mountain streams. Warbling for poets, woodcarvers and elders now. A song for ethics, mystics, dreamers and folklore; fresh air, seeds, penguins, hummingbirds.

Carolling along the tideline.

Désirée Fitzgibbon is the curator of Endangered - Drawing the Line.