Thursday 1 October 2020

Two Herons

 


A heron flew up northwards with the tide,

We watched his pterodactyl, slow beat strength,

Until, upon a whim, he turned, retraced the length.

Another, larger, came up on the left hand side,

And both birds passed each other in an arc,

And dropped their long legs downwards like two cranes,

Depicted on a screen, against a dark

And glossy ebonised sheen. Now what trace remains

Of this strange dance, a captured image in my mind

Described in words, which fail to tell of how it seemed

A token of some truth vouchsafed, but unredeemed

And irredeemable. For birds do not leave keys or codes behind.

And all the stories of the souls of human dead

Or end of plague, are fictions from some human head.

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