Herring Gull

I hear how a colony calls,

cries that pull threads

of understanding, to warn 

and direct; the world spoken

in blue dreams, a dialect

of whistles over waves 

that break their blood magic,

beaked sharp across wash,

the spit of salt in slipstreams

of sky and ocean: the shimmered

courses of other nations. 

I will still wish, but eagle 

the black mountains of tips,

fish discards, and thunder

dark shores for worms. 
 

I will search for the sea

from a rooftop, a silver

wing to seize the wind, and

for another - the yellow song

of a blackbird, the magpie

bark of black and white: 

a distant recognition. 

To want, to covet, 

where word and gesture

mean little voiced alone,

where I sense the fray 

of identity against my need

to belong to anything, any

thing, when I do not know

why I am so hard to love. 
 

Image is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jules_Breton_-_The_Wounded_Sea_Gull.jpg

And on Twitter also: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferdinand_von_Wright_-_European_Herring_Gull_-_A_II_1022-22_-_Finnish_National_Gallery.jpg