Coevolution - Penguin Song

[catamariner]

For the very first time one of my songs (this one) has received a first place in a filk contest (OK, it was a tie for 1st with an adorable song about magical penguins, but I digress). Thank you, FilkOntari-NO3! That is two of my firsts for you all - first invited concert slot, too. Woooow, too cool, thank you all so much!

 

Coevolution – Penguin* Song                        words and music 4/1/22 Heather L. Preston

The black and the white

The stars and the snow

Were playing one night

Above and below

 

 

            In the frozen land in the southern seas

            Jungles used to stand, vast groves of trees

 

 

Swirling solar system

Cauldron of creation

The whitecaps kiss them

The black waves roll on

 

 

            In the frozen land in the southern seas

            Jungles used to stand, vast groves of trees

 

 

Birds that once had flown

Changed with that place

Tens of million-years gone

Turned flight to diving grace

 

 

            In the frozen land in the southern seas

            Jungles used to stand, vast groves of trees

 

 

One thing hasn’t changed

The black and the white

Six months of growing

Six more of night

 

 

            In the frozen land in the southern seas

            Jungles used to stand, vast groves of trees

 

 

Waimanu our mother

We rode currents long

We shield one another

And chant our penguin song

 

 

            In the frozen land in the southern seas

            Jungles used to stand, vast groves of trees
            Six cold months of dark, six months then of day
            In our icebound world of black, white and gray

*I was struck by the evolutionary timescales... the penguin's waimanu ancestor stopped flying and focused more on swimming about 66 million years ago, a time when Antarctica was still heavily forested. The ancestors drifted on and/or followed ocean currents from their Australia / New Zealand origins to Antarctica, and their life cycle changed as the continent itself changed, for those species of penguin that call Antarctica home. There are smaller species that are still native to Australia and New Zealand, and also South America; some live in tree-root burrows, even. Each species of penguin has adapted to their own circumstances.  The one thing that never changed about Antarctica was the polar day/night 6-month cycle. - HLP