Hi Christina, The 'bobbin sky' is intended to embody the ever widening
spiral flight outward of the herring gull scanning for food - c.f. fingers
as they unwind thread from a spool. As though the bird attaches to a fixed
point of sky? (the bobbin of sky)
>From: Christina Fletcher <[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: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 16:03:28 EDT
>
>Yes, Phil, Bob: I definitely 'get' the last stanza and what Phil intended
>it
>to mean. I think it's lovely. What I don't 'get' is 'rig a hide' and
>'Forty shades of green meat'. Bobbin sky - umm - very tricky and not
>really... sounds good but almost impossible to get a visual image from it
>for
>me.
>bw
>christina
>
>
> >
> > 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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