This poem is taken from PN Review 253, Volume 46 Number 5, May - June 2020.
Life-Cycle of the Herring Gull
dedicated to all who held Waterloo Bridge for Extinction Rebellion 15th – 21st April 2019
In the privacy of a side-street, off-season,
Two herring gulls are humping in the empty driveway
Of somebody’s second home – and how
All of that seems only yesterday when
I step out one night to a whooshing
And a swooping feathered form from which
I flinch although it is only nature’s way
To let me know they will once again be
Nesting on my neighbour’s roof. From now on
That round-the-clock chimney-top look-out
Counts us in and out. There will be
Tight security around the first barbecue.
August again brings narrow coast-roads all a-glitter
With traffic tailed back for miles in the heat.
How their grey fuzzy young fill out, come quickly into focus
...
In the privacy of a side-street, off-season,
Two herring gulls are humping in the empty driveway
Of somebody’s second home – and how
All of that seems only yesterday when
I step out one night to a whooshing
And a swooping feathered form from which
I flinch although it is only nature’s way
To let me know they will once again be
Nesting on my neighbour’s roof. From now on
That round-the-clock chimney-top look-out
Counts us in and out. There will be
Tight security around the first barbecue.
August again brings narrow coast-roads all a-glitter
With traffic tailed back for miles in the heat.
How their grey fuzzy young fill out, come quickly into focus
...
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