Lapwing 2

Lapwing 2

 

I have long loved the lapwing’s cry:

it is wildness walking on the wind.

It sidles into clouds, pennywhistles

its way to heaven, routs the lower

eddies, tells beautiful tales of nests

and speckled eggs, fills hearts

when bleakness comes full-on

in withering blasts. It is bright metal,

cast in moulds of air: its uprush

and its plummet leave the sky

astir with plaintiveness, plunging

death-songs, descants and lies.

 

Song Lyric by Giles Watson, 2013.

Done