Freckles make your back a map
Seabirds circle but they lack
Grasp of what youth endures
Vacating summer shores
Carrying their lives to sea.

Mechanically they return
For bright months they did not yearn-
Only their homecoming retells
Of warmth and hope in summer spells
Of ploughed soil, banked country roads
And feathers bent not under loads;
Put-to-side partners reconcile,
Their lives measured in sea miles
Time comfortably slipping away,
Together living easy days
Until they fly on.