The Puzzled Naturalist And The Puffin

The P.N.: Puffin! Puffin! Thou dost go

Through wild western gales that blow;

Tell me, what discreet decree

Prescrib’d thy strange pomposity?

Why this fashion, thus to flight—

Bill roug’d—dressed in black and white?

What, as well, dost thou suppose,

Is signified by outsiz’d nose?

Puffin, puffin, answer me,

Why thy clown’s formality?

What attraction, what affair

Ordains such dress, so debonair?

The Puffin: Him who made me thus so free,

Winged to fly through air and sea,

On (and under) earth to go,

Ask Him your riddles: He will know.

(Photo Courtesy of Austin Patton)