The Enlightenment Room

British Museum, London

Let us begin small—
this hummingbird nest from Rio de Janeiro
claimed by Captain Cook’s maiden voyage
because maiden means first,
the ship called Endeavor,
and so they endeavored in 1766
to classify this gauzy pocket. I’d label it
lost sock, child’s mitten, its partner
left on another continent,
yet bright as if recently laundered,
some sparkling thread
woven throughout. Now it sleeps
in case three of the Enlightenment Room
which I accidentally wrote twice
as the Englishment Room, the l’s
and g’s tangled from knowledge
to empire. We’re asked to imagine
it holds some dream
of the small bird’s wings tucked
to its heart, the hummingbird
asleep, warming her pill-sized eggs.
Across the case, a mastodon’s molar
gleams like a chewing jewel and a two-foot tall
book of diagrams turns one page
every three months. I will not be here
to mark it. So, let us begin and then
perhaps remain small. Forget mummies
and marbles, the overpriced mugs. Here
are the boxes of Sir Sloane. Dozens
of tiny cubbies sorting bark—Peruvian, fever
treatment, preserved through
the centuries, though His collection
of live animals did not survive the passage.
Of course not. The smallest
release when the case
is opened. A long-dead wonder and
greed (and grief) barely an exhale.