A juvenile,
Dig in the shingle pile
At tide’s lull;
It found a snail
And vainly prised at it,
That flesh in the shell’s pail
Unshifted by each shake or hit.
Dancing-shrill,
That gull on flung-out wings
Rose in the salt air’s slings,
The snail clutched in its bill,
Then hurled it on the stones –
I heard the “clack”;
Four times it soared in the wind’s groans
To make attack.
The shell split
At last; seizing the meat,
With a wing’s beat
The gull veered to a spit,
Green-weeded, running-wet,
To gulp its prize, unmobbed
By other gulls. The wind’s fret
Flurried, and the tide bobbed.
That brown-flecked gull,
Lean-young and screech of breath,
Had parried hunger’s pull:
Daily he starves or metes out death.
====================
©
July 2015