a charming story
Androcles and the gull
Terri
-----Original Message-----
From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Philip Burton
Sent: 06 October 2002 21:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: THE HERRING GULL
The Herring Gull PHILIP BURTON
When days were young
I’d rig a hide, out on the rocks
at the heels of the ebb tide
and be with herring gulls.
Summer years
were given to the task
with no return but the ocean
and finding my calmer side.
Unwinding from the bobbin sky
the birds threw off
high tuba calls
without sacrifice of altitude.
Forty shades of green meat
failed to feed a single beak.
Gulls dipped and rose as though
a glass floor kept them.
Then, one preternatural day
in the mid oven of noon
tamely on stiff skin legs
a herring gull came.
A vestige of line strayed
from the loud sunshine beak
and, no question mark,
a fishing-hook
had snared her craw.
Something must have said,
Go to that man down there -
he’s mad, but means okay.
I didn’t ask the vet
what procedure had to say
but watched the claws ease
as the steel was drawn away.
When I’m down or ill
I stretch my arms and hear
a trumpeting of skies
and strong wings rising.
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