Monday 21 March 2016

Gulls On The Reservoir Viewed From The Swing After School, Late Winter.

Screeches and screaming and squealing, circling flight,
Raucous, rowdy, wheeling, fragments of white,
The gulls are crowding this small, 
Clear place to which they are drawn,
And dropping like confetti strewn 
On the water's face: that clear, dimpled impossible skin,
Brush marked with bruises,
Small ellipses, slate and indigo, tiny and thin.
Sudden flashes and glances of orange-peach light
Bounced off the surface of shimmering silk, 
Silver and bright and grey-blue, glinting.
Squinting glimpses through catkins 
And bare twigs of alders and over the wall.
And over the tops of my shoes at the height
Of the arc I make, having turned my back on the beeches, 
Dense and dark and towering tall,
Hiding the sinking, pinking sun,
Deepening the dark shades of dusk at the side of the hall,
Turning the sandstone to dark grey, from fawn,
Encroaching and crowding the shadowy space, at the end of the lawn.

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