Corvids by the Sea front – #52weeksofnaturepoetry Week 27

Daisy-like blooms hug the cliffside,

neighbouring thicker bushes and brambles.

Roaring nearby, the ocean leaps

onto the wall, spittle flecks

dousing passers-by,

including ink-cloaked crows and rooks

scanning the area for nibbles.

Affronted by the water’s threatening stance,

these birds take wing,

flapping energetically, gaining hight,

                                                                                          soaring.

Gliding like delicate ice-skaters.

(Except their ‘lake’

is the gusting open,

limitless save for the air’s thinness

and cool touch

if one ventures too high.)

To save energy, they clutch

at ridges on the rock face

with their capable feet,

used to perching

in rough, uneven places.

There they wait in silent council

until the ocean quietens

and the footfall of tourists returns,

dropping stray chips and ice-cream cones

as markers of their passage.

Eagerly, the corvids dive,

snatching what they can

before the gulls gobble up the rest.

This poem is part of a project I’m doing to raise money for the RSPB, a UK wildlife conservation and protection charity. Being autistic, nature is often my only place of solace, and I want to do all I can to protect it. As I’m not very comfortable around other people, most of the standard ways of helping out (volunteering, social fundraisers etc) were not a good fit for me, so I came up with #52weeksofnaturepoetry, where I have to post a nature poem here on this blog each week for an entire year without fail.

If you’d like to help, please share this poem to encourage others to take joy in nature, and if you have the time and means to donate, you can do so here. Let’s help keep our wildlife wild!

(You can also become a member of the RSPB and support them month to month. Members receive Nature’s Home magazine and seasonal guides for what to look out for when out and about. Details are on their website.)

Advertisement

Seafoam

The sea is a bath of minds and instinct,

of pressure and freedom and danger.

Tide in or tide out, if you stand and stare at it long enough

it will tug you away, molecule by molecule

until sea foam is all that you are.

But sea foam is what merpeople are birthed from,

and giant manta rays will guide you

as you spread yourself out to touch hands

with everything that has ever passed by.

The moon and the world

It rises,

like a bubble to the lips of the sea,

arcing overheard,

radiant

with its silver blush.

Its fingers reach

for the other’s outstretched hand,

their yearning concrete enough

to swell the chest of the shore.

A touch of salt

I was a mermaid, once

riding the currents

into the whirling foams

erupting around the shell of Venus.

Her seaweed hair

would entangle my fins

and those of my sisters;

a dance of oasis floods

gathering in the night.

A message without a bottle

If I listen closely,

I can hear it.

Hear it in the swell,

in the foam,

in the salty droplets that land on my face,

even in the cries of the gulls

beating their white wings overhead.

The strong steady thrum

of distant lands

calling

calling

calling

rippling forever through the depths

like a record on repeat,

going around and around and around

until someone finally hears it

and lifts off the needle.

‘Message received,’

I whisper.