Poetry Pleases: Flyaware
Philip Sibley advises us to contemplate bird-flight and allow ourselves to be persuaded that all is well in the pastures willed to man.
While eagles soar the mountain
And buzzards hunt the moor,
Kestrels hover overhead
And herons wade the stream.
Owls patrol the darkening heath
To the blackbird’s evensong.
Swallows make their pilgrimage
To northern Europe nests,
And geese in V shape skein
Fly south to winter fields.
Natal urges prompting,
Passed on from year to year.
As albatross and petrels
Glide the ocean’s swell,
And gannets dive to feed
On shoals of sprat below.
Oyster catchers rummage
In the tide washed rack.
While sparrows search,
And thrushes beat the snail,
Wrens and robins pick
In leaf below the hedge,
And tribes of starlings
Chatter on the roof.
As with the dawn
The morning chorus
Greets the rising sun,
Reflect in peaceful calm
That all is well in these,
The pastures willed to Man.
