In the Pink

(Roseate Spoonbill)

I like Spoonbills, but I don’t like pink.
Like Robert Louis Stevenson’s shadow,
“What can be the use of [it] is more than I can see.”

Certainly unlike Stevenson’s shadow, pink is not subtle.
It stands out like a homing beacon to any hungry predator. 
It clashes with its very own tail-feather orange. 
It forever places the bird in the company of 1960s kitsch.
It stokes rivalry and misidentification among Flamingo lovers everywhere. 

But Nature never asked me.
So I’m content to spy on their startling presence
and wonder further at their glorious rosy hue.
Me thinks their pink may win me yet.