THE CURLEW

I couldn't get a photo of the curlew as I didn't have my camera with me, so I 'borrowed' this one.

The curlew.

Carefree the curlew, to my thinking

looking upwards from beneath

into a cloudwashed sky

replete with rain not falling.

And the circling and the diving

with curving beak

down-pointing,

wings spread gliding

or beating up against the windless air,

eyes scanning needle-sharp

to pin-point whatever food is there

inland from the richness,

eagre*-fed,

of the salt-marsh estuary bed,

if only for an earthy feast

of worms

from rain-washed ground released. 

And the strident crying

with unique, persistent,

triple-calling notes fast-dying,

addressed to nothing,

or perhaps a distant mate far-flying,

loud-carrying

above the silver sweetness

of the blackbird’s jealous vying

and the mocking cuckoo newly fledged

and the cheeseless** yellowhammer,

silly on the hedge. 

Carefree the curlew, to my unthinking

not driven by instinct’s insistence

unknown to my own fey existence,

not realising that this morning’s early breaking

of the night-starved fast

to daily feed the famished wide-mouthed gaping

is a task not lightly asked.

*An 'eagre' is a tidal river bore found especially on the Humber.

** Refers to the yellowhammer's call of "just-a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese".

THE OAKS' GRAVEYARD

The Oaks’ Graveyard.

The oaks are dead.

Straying from the road,

I stumbled on their secret graveyard,

enclosed within a stand of living trees

where their remains now rest –

eighteen in all and once of mighty size,

but now just severed and uprooted stumps,

hidden from the common sight within a roadside copse.

This stand of trees was once a greater wood,

where, no doubt, oaks grew strong and tall.

(Not far away, the last of these still lives –

its massive, hollow shell

now standing like a spectre

beside the old lane’s edge.)

I’ve passed here many times before

but never guessed that in this shady place

these precious relics,

each like a wooden Ozymandias, lay:

cut down, uprooted, left to rot,

and overshadowed by tall-growing ash and birch.

Some upright, others on their sides,

each forms its own memorial

but all without a name or date recording their demise.

And overhead, the reverend rooks

in well-worn Sunday black

preach from sky-roofed pulpits,

chanting never-ending funeral rites

or delivering grim sermons

on death’s inevitable grip,

while a woodpecker

is hammering in coffin nails.

Across the sky, a red kite haunts the fields,

uttering its strident, plaintive cries,

not mithering for the oaks  

but in mocking tones bemoaning

the death inflicted

by its own beak and claws.