READ THIS
This is a descriptive nature poem, and not particularly complicated in any way. The poet is painting a
picture with words of a stork standing on its long thin legs in the shallow waters of an African lake at dawn.
The stork appears to look both tired and sad: tired possibly because of its long flight to this spot; sad
because it is all alone, its companion storks not yet having arrived.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Douglas Livingstone was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1932. He came to South Africa with his
family at ten years of age when his father was captured by the Japanese. He would settle in Natal where
he went to Kearsney College.
He attended university in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia -- now Harare, Zimbabwe -- where he
trained as a bacteriologist, eventually becoming a marine biologist. He was later awarded a Ph.D. in
Science from the University of Natal.
Livingstone was employed as a marine biologist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in
Durban.
He produced several volumes of poetry and wrote radio plays -- winning several awards, the highest
being an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Natal.
He died in Durban in 1996.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"Before sunrise the stork was there
resting the pillow of his body
on stick legs growing from the water."
- When did the stork arrive at the lake? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet doesn't say, merely that it was already there "before sunrise". Did it fly in during the night?
Was it there the previous day?
We have absolutely no idea although the poet later does give the idea that the stork flew there through
the night. Can you find out where?
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- Why is the stork's body referred to as "the pillow of his body"? (4)
[Need help?]
This is a description of what the stork's body looks like, but couched as a metaphor. The body is large
(the size of a pillow), white (the colour of a pillow) and looking feathery, fluffy and soft (pillows used to be
stuffed with feathers or down).
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- Comment on the poet's word usage: "on stick legs growing from the water". (4)
[Need help?]
The poet describes the stork's legs as being very thin, as thin as sticks. He then expands this image: the
sticks are growing from the mud beneath the water. This image is enhanced by the fact that the stork's
feet were hidden beneath the water.
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"A flickering gust of pencil-slanted rain
swept over the chill autumn morning."
- What does the image "a flickering gust" tell us about the rain? (2)
[Need help?]
The rain is not a deluge but rather a scudding squall of rain that sweeps across the lake and just as
quickly is gone.
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- What do the words "pencil-slanted" tell us? (4)
[Need help?]
Does the use of the word "pencil" tell us that the rain was heavy? Were the drops as thick as a
pencil? Probably not.
It is rather a description of how slanted the rain was: as slanted as a pencil is slanted in one's hand when
one is writing with one.
This slanted rain tells us about the strength of the wind gusting across the lake.
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"He, too tired to arrange
his wind-buffeted plumage."
- Why would the stork be too tired to rearrange his plumage? (4)
[Need help?]
Of course, the disarranged plumage has absolutely nothing to do with the stork's tiredness. It is simply
the result of the wind buffeting its feathers.
The poet, however, cleverly uses that image to tell us that the stork has flown a long way to reach that
lake, and it is therefore tired.
The poet is therefore using personification: giving the stork the characteristics of a person, probably a
woman. A woman would have to be very tired not to rearrange her hair if it has been dishevelled by the
wind. The stork, of course, wouldn't attempt to do so, tired or not tired.
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"neck flattened, ruminative,
beak on chest, contemplative eye
filmy with star vistas and hollow
black migratory leagues, strangely,
ponderously alone and some weeks
early."
- Comment on the use of the words "ruminative" and "contemplative" as they are used to
enhance the poet's meaning. (4)
[Need help?]
Both these words invoke the idea of thinking.
"Ruminative" uses the image of the cow which stares as though deep in thought as it chews the
cud.
"Contemplative", on the other hand, conjures up the idea of spiritual thoughts. Monks and nuns
contemplate each morning and evening, their thoughts deeply spiritual as they contemplate ideas of a
religious nature.
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- Why is the stork's eye "filmy with star vistas and hollow black migratory
leagues"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet very definitely gives us the idea that the stork has indeed flown a long way during the night.
He speaks about "star vistas" and "hollow black leagues": the distance being "hollow"
because the stork has been flying through the black, empty sky.
The stork's eye is possibly "filmy" from tiredness.
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[Need help?]
A league was a unit of length commonly used in Europe but no longer so. It referred originally to the
distance that a person or a horse could walk in an hour. It therefore had no exact distance but differed
from one country to another.
One could probably safely say that a league meant about five or six kilometres but it carried rather the idea
of a great distance and not a specific distance.
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