from Spectral Spirits

Once, in the swampy, damp lands of the Southeastern United States, the Lord God Bird graced the canopy. “One pair needed six square miles of wet forest, with dead trees, in which to search for grubs,” says Holly J. Hughes in her poem. These birds needed what we all, as creatures of nature, need to survive – food, shelter and a safe place to raise our young. They were robbed of these necessities by human’s knack for destroying habitat and it cost the birds dearly. The last confirmed sighting was in Louisiana in 1944. However, recently birders have collected video footage. The footage is not clear enough to qualify as confirmation but there is an inkling of hope that these magnificent birds may not be gone.

Type: Choral
Voicing or Instrumentation: SATB divisi chorus