Common Seals at Wallasea
. . . . . . . .an atmospheric perspective
Observe the word of birds:
this is not land which we acquire;
nor sky, but firmament;
not sea, but embouchure.
Absence of parallels,
the river curvilinear;
the weight of evidence
in air. It has enough to bear.
In our geodesy,
no line is straight and true.
Wake-make a herringbone;
backtrack, for there is no elsewhere.
Flood, be our penitence.
Breach, be beyond repair.
Let ebbing take it back;
the wind is sibilant and fair.
A better testament:
the air, and nothing but the air
in which all distances
are relative to blue.
(Dedicated to the RSPB Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project)
by Philip Quinlan
Editor’s Note: The rhymes embody this imagistic poem with a sense of curved meaning—if you look at the imagery as if you were flying, the stuff on the ground twists and turns and gives you a broader perspective of what the world looks like.
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