Hi Philip,
A neat, well worked, poem!
I think I agree with the query about the word preternatural... and the
phrase "bobbin sky" isn't easy to unravel meaning from either. I heard the
sound of the tuba, though!
I still find the last two lines seem to puzzle me a little:
"a trumpeting of skies
and strong wings rising."
where I guess the "trumpeting" is echoing the tuba - but the phrase, of
itself, is what puzzles me... why trumpets? If you're only wanting to echo
the tuba is there another way to do that? Or is the trumpet meant to signify
something that's linked to a storm - with the strong wind? (I get Wagner at
full blast pushing itself into my head!). I'm puzzled, I think, because
everything else in the poem seems far calmer and the penultimate stanza is
far more positive - and this seems such a contrast, it feels such a change
of subject, and sort of negative.
Bob
>From: Philip Burton <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: THE HERRING GULL
>Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 21:04:33 +0100
>
> 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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