POEM: Prospero's Prospect, Jay Johnson

This I abjure:
rough young magicians with red hair
and freckles and the memories
of them which have dissolved me in tears.
Full fathom five
my father lies and my beloved
and my beloved and
the ones I thought, however briefly
beloved
and of their bones is coral made
and of my heart
is hope squeezed not quite dry.
Even as the leaves cover paths
and grasses parch, there is nothing
but expectation
of the island, the prospect
of the buoys tolling in the sea
the cloudless sky
the spells
for which no longer have I breath,
of the final nothing at all.

                               JAY JOHNSON
                               as featured in the Gay & Lesbian Review

Science Notebook - The Antbird...

THE ANSWER TO A PHILANDERING ANTBIRD

The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that antbirds -- tropical birds often found in the Amazon chasing columns of swarming ants --

"have loud, usually unmusical voices that may be heard in echo duets."

Research to be published in the journal Current Biology in April suggests a possible explanation for the cacophonous duets: Female antbirds, researchers have found, "jam" the calls of their mates to other females by singing over the male voices. In response to being jammed, the males then change their tune.

Researchers Joseph A. Tobias and Nathalie Seddon of the University of Oxford said this was the first example of behavior involving jamming, and jamming avoidance, ever seen in nature.
"In human terms, signal jamming is most commonly associated with attempts to scramble information in radio, radar, or cell phone signals," Tobias said in a statement. "The females in our study try to do a similar thing with the songs of their partner, but the overall situation is more analogous to a wife continually interrupting her husband to stop him from flirting with a single woman."

Bird duets, the researchers conclude, can tell complex stories about conflict and cooperation within a species. By recording the birds and playing back their duets, the researchers found that there were times when male and female birds would sing in harmony -- often when they were fending off common rivals. But when the bond between the birds was threatened by a single female, the birds resorted to cacophonous jamming and jamming defense calls.

If such techniques were part of the evolutionary history of humans, the researchers noted, "our results may help to explain the first steps towards complex, coordinated group signals in humans, which themselves are the likely forerunners to modern music."

Source: The Washington Post