I'm sorry I couldn't find such positive/heraldic hints... Perhaps it was the
introduction to the trumpets & wind: the statement "when I'm down or ill"
and I thought the arms were being stretched out for help (not to welcome
something "new"). But, because I may be not quite with it here, I wonder if
anyone else has any comments about this...
Bob
>From: Philip Burton <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re Re: THE HERRING GULL
>Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 20:30:46 +0100
>
>Thanks, Bob.
>I intended the last two lines to herald a feeling of initiation into
>experience of a higher realm of existence, a brotherhood of creation if you
>will, where cooperation between species is a given, even a new inhabiting
>of the world (perceived as Gaia)where all life-forces are unified. The
>language I use here, as you say, is in contrast to the rest, but I hope
>that it points to a new horizon outside of the poem
>
>>From: Bob Cooper <[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: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 15:04:15 +0000
>>
>>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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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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