Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Sand Martin
Sand Martin
Delighting not in cottages or towns,
Spurning even barns half tumbled-down,
She is fera natura, disclaiming domestic attachments,
Delighting in wide waters and sandy banks,
Nidificating underground.
Mouse-coloured and diffident,
Vacillating in flight like a butterfly
Bewildered by too many flowers -
Perhaps she means thereby
To catch one, by this imitation -
She flits above lakes, or lonely oxbows
In slow-flowing streams, or hides her brood
Where downland churchyards crumble
Into seas, and tidewashed fingerbones
Blanch on unwalked strands.
She is the cryptogame, the Mystery,
Who sleeps where no man knows.
From my longer poem, 'Hirundines'. The full text is here:
www.flickr.com/photos/29320962@N07/3099200375/in/set-7215...
Recording from my poetry reading at Longstone Heritage Centre, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, 17th August 2006.
Sand Martin
Sand Martin
Delighting not in cottages or towns,
Spurning even barns half tumbled-down,
She is fera natura, disclaiming domestic attachments,
Delighting in wide waters and sandy banks,
Nidificating underground.
Mouse-coloured and diffident,
Vacillating in flight like a butterfly
Bewildered by too many flowers -
Perhaps she means thereby
To catch one, by this imitation -
She flits above lakes, or lonely oxbows
In slow-flowing streams, or hides her brood
Where downland churchyards crumble
Into seas, and tidewashed fingerbones
Blanch on unwalked strands.
She is the cryptogame, the Mystery,
Who sleeps where no man knows.
From my longer poem, 'Hirundines'. The full text is here:
www.flickr.com/photos/29320962@N07/3099200375/in/set-7215...
Recording from my poetry reading at Longstone Heritage Centre, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, 17th August 2006.