The sky is dark the countryside is quiet
But the spur winged plovers cry out in the night
Above their territory they call and fly
Perhaps the hunting fox is prowling by.

The possums hiss on gum tree in the park
And in a yard nearby a terrier bark
At wailing tom cats fighting on the street
For the right to mate with a female in heat.

The night is calm there's scarce a puff of breeze
And boobook owl hunting for small birds in the cypress trees
Repeat the same call over and again
And frogs are croaking in the pond and drain.

The countryside may seem quiet after dark
But in the sky above the nearby park
The spur winged plovers cry out in the night
Perhaps a fox has driven them to flight.

Willets cull the seawall
snapper on the grill
rock ***** swoon
in shallow lagoons
long boats pass
under quiet
palm shade

Plovers dance and flutter
handrails frayed and torn
graffiti spots
at lovers rock
frigate-birds fall
from a high
noon sun

Thatched roof on a mud wall
fish flags settle score
anchors arch
in front line march
pillar cracks form
under rust brown scars

Elegant tern and grebe
watchmen fall in cue
children play
on crested waves
whimbrels and notchers
perch above Tentaciones

Striped pelícanos
the bandits of the sea!
merchants grow
in steady flow
siblings jostle
in a tide cooled sand

Heerman gull and boobie
durango smoke in yurt
boiler shrimp
and puffer blimp
castle buckets and scrapers
under a dusk light cheroot

Six pulls on a lead line
painted toes in sand
shearwater run
in a rainbow sun
the portly mexicano
flaunts his tacos
and wares

Rooster house for swordfish
bamboo shoots and sails
broken shells
and ocean swells
rise
on the
perfect
La Ropa bay

King and Queen of the Pelicans we;
No other Birds so grand we see!
None but we have feet like fins!
With lovely leathery throats and chins!
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

We live on the Nile. The Nile we love.
By night we sleep on the cliffs above;
By day we fish, and at eve we stand
On long bare islands of yellow sand.
And when the sun sinks slowly down
And the great rock walls grow dark and brown,
Where the purple river rolls fast and dim
And the Ivory Ibis starlike skim,
Wing to wing we dance around,--
Stamping our feet with a flumpy sound,--
Opening our mouths as Pelicans ought,
And this is the song we nighly snort;--
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

Last year came out our daughter, Dell;
And all the Birds received her well.
To do her honour, a feast we made
For every bird that can swim or wade.
Herons and Gulls, and Cormorants black,
Cranes, and flamingoes with scarlet back,
Plovers and Storks, and Geese in clouds,
Swans and Dilberry Ducks in crowds.
Thousands of Birds in wondrous flight!
They ate and drank and danced all night,
And echoing back from the rocks you heard
Multitude-echoes from Bird to bird,--
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

Yes, they came; and among the rest,
The King of the Cranes all grandly dressed.
Such a lovely tail! Its feathers float
between the ends of his blue dress-coat;
With pea-green trowsers all so neat,
And a delicate frill to hide his feet,--
(For though no one speaks of it, every one knows,
He has got no webs between his toes!)

As soon as he saw our Daughter Dell,
In violent love that Crane King fell,--
On seeing her waddling form so fair,
With a wreath of shrimps in her short white hair.
And before the end of the next long day,
Our Dell had given her heart away;
For the King of the Cranes had won that heart,
With a Crocodile's egg and a large fish-****.
She vowed to marry the King of the Cranes,
Leaving the Nile for stranges plains;
And away they flew in a gathering crowd
Of endless birds in a lengthening cloud.
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

And far away in the twilight sky,
We heard them singing a lessening cry,--
Farther and farther till out of sight,
And we stood alone in thesilent night!
Often since, in the nights of June,
We sit on the sand and watch the moon;--
She has gone to the great Gromboolian plain,
And we probably never shall meet again!
Oft, in the long still nights of June,
We sit on the rocks and watch the moon;--
----She dwells by the streams of the Chankly Bore,
And we probably never shall see her more.
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

the drama in a ****** of crows
the clueless jive of the chickadee
the serious expression of the phoebe
hide and seek flickers
overly dramatic plovers
sleek kestrels, scanning the meadow
gulls always headed somewhere
the mystery of owls
robins, Art Carney-like
nuthatches that waddle through the air
an advertisement of goldfinches
vile, surly winged jays
waxwings, safe within their clique
ospreys, fat on minnows
snapshot herons always posing
patient vultures, ever on call

the perfect beasts to rule this world
they reveal personalities
to this lifetime observer

Somewhere seabirds pipe and bleat,
gathered on a dark low tide.
Shapes and shadows line the fleet,
cold and calling.

In the shore hide facing north
I'm focussing black ten-by-forties,
hunched against the wall for warmth;
the tide still falling.

Looking out, I'm looking back,
thirty years have ebbed away;
the boy, his joy, his haversac,
his notebook scrawling;

I see him, tremulous, wild-eyed,
among the plovers, curlew, knot,
a loosed dog shakes them and he flies,
the seawall salt sting cuts and dries;
there's no recalling.

Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.

First Voice. Maybe they linger by the way.
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters by the wall -
He dreads the weight of mortal hours.

Second Voice. O no, O no! they hurry down
Like plovers that have heard the call.

Third Voice. O kinsmen of the Three in One,
O kinsmen, bless the hands that play.
The notes they waken shall live on
When all this heavy history's done;
Our hands, our hands must ebb away.

Three Voices [together]. The proud and careless notes live on,
But bless our hands that ebb away.

Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless the hands that play,
The mouths that speak, the notes and strings,
O masters of the glittering town!
O! lay the shrilly trumpet down,
Though drunken with the flags that sway
Over the ramparts and the towers,
And with the waving of your wings.
First Voice. Maybe they linger by the way.
One gathers up his purple gown;
One leans and mutters by the wall --
He dreads the weight of mortal hours.
Second Voice. O no, O no! they hurry down
Like plovers that have heard the call.
Third Voice. O kinsmen of the Three in One,
O kinsmen, bless the hands that play.
The notes they waken shall live on
When all this heavy history's done;
Our hands, our hands must ebb away.
Three Voices [together]. The proud and careless notes live on,
But bless our hands that ebb away.

Blanc oblivion thinly beckons
where riotous heart requests accounting's debt
in solitary thoughts of Gatsby-born yearning seconds
across lantern's green light ambient water's depth

Mallet's chisel chip lines of marble translucence
ordaining Venus's vague and insubstantial essence
passing on near wings of plovers
shore's dashing burst of smooth liquid love

Spilled words all but mingle in measured metre
fleshing forth anatomy of a mannequin's naked plume
disposed to press black key fugitive figures
sprinting sandpiper legs from sand castle spume

-cec

creepy night river awake like a fever
as fireflies glow in furtive morse code
the eerie evening commands silence
in the hollow empty spaces yielded
in sonorous silences by a yawning dearth
of everything that's sacred, pure and sweet
once there was raw laughter and joy here
and weavers wove rich tales of fat worms
for their pampered nestlings afloat on air
once there was life and presence here
but now small spaces abound in this vast absence
of sunshine smiles and catwalk swinging
now it's plovers, owls and night jars galore
as their apocalyptic cries smite the night
like a plague in New Canaan where glory
is never too far away from the surface gloss
of a loveliness kidnapped by the salacious gods
of lewd desires and morbid libidos alive in tales
that are forever testifying to the loud presence
of envious divinities on a free ride upon our egos
everything is gone now but the thunderous silence
and the smiles that lit up our days are now but a memory
of wan looks and faded joys clad in the hollow feelings of pain
and that's all that ever remains when our futile antics are done

Blessed are the poorly, for theirs is the kingdom of mudflats

The dispirited streak turgid waters
sinuously, through unsettled feelings
in the wake of boats shedding
filaments of fuel,
sheen on a turbid infusion
and the cordgrass nods a resilience
or an apathy as the silt settles
on their Piscean gleam

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see a salted heaven

Angelic Menhaden of the Atlantic,
are silvery stretches of scale,
dulled in death under a festering sun
and the retreating tide of dying waters
brined in ocean, freshwater spirited
to secret spaces, some dammed crevasse,
now  tumultuous  fate in a salted heaven

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled

At the Tabgha of this intertidal palette
Cattails whisper beatitudes
latched onto the tails of wind gusts
and the plovers descended
in a litany of  bird song
amassed like the manna
trailing  tidal waters
as the sea swallows herself.
Blessed are the herons, the mallards,
the geese. Time is measured
in the passage of fish that
cycle themselves through the innards of birds

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the rocks

The meek Menhaden, leaped
onto the rocks that hemmed the inlet,
escaping the hungry habits of herons.
They inherited Earth in agony    
pounding a rocky surface,
but the air I swim, had no water.
I prodded these  Menhaden of the Rock
to the fringe of retreating tides,
and they leaped to die once more
to breathe water that had no air

Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted

Blessed is the discomfiture
of my brackish tears
that streak marsh faces
as fish struggle out of dead water.
I take comfort I don't inhabit
tainted places or do I take comfort,
all places are the tint of poison,
the gleam of a genesis of sorrow

VII

This is my end
surely this is
the end of it all
all I know is here
and though I am
young this is the end
of life as I know it
now and soon I will
see my home no more
for this is my end
here where I shelter
from all I cannot
think beyond this ending
surely the end of all
I know is here
and will be gone

(after a cine still from 1930 of a St Kllda woman)

XVIIIa

house above the hut
of shadows holds itself
against the relentless wind
on so open a shore
islands and inlets beyond
reasonable number stand
before its policies
its promontory land
Up on the third floor
light fills every corner
expelling its shadows
to the hut held
within its sight

XVIIIb

slowly the darkness
reveals less than
a shadow thrown
against a plastered wall
inside silenced from the wind
an image grows as the eyes
succumb to less than light
used to looking Suggestion
and the memory of outside
supply the rest

(two poems connected by Chris Drury’s Hut of Shadows on North Uist)


XIX

following footsteps
crisp in the sand
hour-fresh from tide-fall
now the shadows form
in the weight of press
the imprint mark
different with every
fall of limb and claw
the 3-pronged bird-foot
the sandaled human
step singular one
before another after
another until perspective
conceals and merges
into distant sand

**

silence suddenly
the ringed plovers
hold their breath
then chorus
a chirping as they wade
together in their own
reflections
the water like glass
at their feet
mirroring
movement that light
hop for a few steps onto
a slight but sturdy island

tweet then terweet
inflected upwards
a questioning call
terweet?

XX1

the taste of salt sea
in the mouth
the touch of water
thick sea-water
on the legs between toes
the sharp cold plunge
immersion envelopment

sunlight throws a cascade
of bright steps across the sea
gradually merging into a band of light
ablaze on the horizon
at the base of distant Monarchs
a silhouette of massed rock
rises from the sea crowned
by static clouds decorating the sky
gentle white ermine-soft

Stones bulk large:

depleted plovers
scrape their smaller partners
into minute curves and ramps.

This junction
when the bird's weight
******* and ties the shale in patterns
is the sea lords' making.

Stones sit on
like rigid eyes:
their stare worn silly
by the sea's corrosive pull,
their grating interplay --
uncanny masochism,

while the human heel
depletes the simple curve of eggs.

A singeing bleak...

Eye water, colors from thistle gripped nothings
Numb from a dissident space
Absence is minded by pale phased etchings
Embellishing braids of cinnamon briar, while
flushing the tumbles of Old Man’s Beard.

Mercury drops...

a Starling backed brush to the blackening fields
all riddled with meddling shoals
Turned ermine surrenders a rumour
Of solstice, remembers the Ploughmen
The tread of the horses that folded the beds
Of the cold, tired Earth,
While, over, the Plovers wheel.

A new year just started with                                                                                   A fabulous and wonderful month ...                                                                       January is not a lone month ,but                                                                            It's always different with its Winters ....                                                                 Blizzards , snows , rains , floods , and                                                                    Too many things over there ...                                                                                 Woolen plovers are worn by people                                                                       And woolen gloves too ...                                                                                         I feel differently with January's all thirty-one days ....

in the scraggy grass
beside the shearer's quarters
plovers made their nests

Champagne seas , beachside dreams
Silver plovers and pelican brothers working -
the musical shore
Young people occupied with white sands  , sunshine occupied with emerald waters , white clouds caressing the gulf ..  Old folks in love* ...

blue ***** dig caves
under sandy rocks
and the smell of salt
boats tied to docks

the gulls swoop low
to catch a bite
and plovers wade
as horseflies bite

footprints make a trail
boys and girls building castles
with shovel and pail
green foamy seas

lined with cockleshells
and balmy breeze
driftwood and seaweed
tangled around my toes

and knees
tanning woman lying
on colored towels
as sunburned baby

in sagging diaper howls
coconut oil
permeates the air
as old folks sit

on navy beach chairs
bags of chips and kegs of beer
and hairy chested men
that often stare

a bunch of teens punch
a volleyball over
a long-stretched net
my nape breaks out

in a sweat
riding surfs on boogie boards
dripping ice-cream cones
sandpipers call this their home

as they lie on nests in the dunes
while radios blare 80's tunes
life's troubles out of reach
a typical day at the beach