Thanks Terri, nice take. Phil
>From: alderoak <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: THE HERRING GULL
>Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 21:38:29 +0100
>
>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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