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
...