THEY’RE BACK
Launched by the light of lengthening days,
these coastal birds return inland
to the lonely, windswept and spare places
chosen by their ancestors
for mating and parenting
There, then lost in the wind.
Again it comes, stronger now.
Cur - li!
The Curlew’s cry! There it is.
- the first of the year
- sails in on a biting wind skimming
snow-capped northern Pennine fells.
Gentle melodic burblings with
melancholic undertones fill the skies
flood souls, swell hearts, choke throats.
Stopped in our tracks, hands shading eyes,
we gawp at the sky touched, mesmerised, relieved
Cur - li! Cur - li!
They came back!
SCRAMBLED EGGS
Incoming!
Crows, kestrels, gulls,
kites, harriers, owls,
aloft, doing what they must.
This, the shrieking circling
frantic Curlew understands,
as she and all whose army
sees them off.
So what to make of the buzz,
the drone, the throb, and roar, and smoke
of the scrambler bike,
the metal-man centaur,
snaking up the fell,
spattering stones,
scrambling eggs,
raising hell?
