Another exciting week, four wonderful new pieces and we need your help.

Learning The Truth About Kingfishers

The planet lost a little of its patina
the day he told me that a kingfisher’s
not really blue. “Oh no,” he intoned,
“there’s not a hint of pigment
in their plumage. Deep in shade,
they fade to just another LBJ.”
It seems that something in their feather-hairs
can scatter sun to conjure colour from a blur of air,
as if there is a world of brilliance somewhere
the bird reveals as it unzips the river.

Norman Hadley

Rossall Point

I’ll know just when my time has come when God will call my name
And then I’ll ask for one more hour before my soul He’d claim.
I’ll make my way to Rossall Point far from the madding throng
With quiet mind to stand awhile at peace where I belong.

And as the distant hills turn blue in Lakeland’s evening haze,

I’ll think of how we walked and climbed on golden summer days
Of how we said they’d never end but all the time we knew
We blink an eye; the years go by and sadly end they do.

Then to the West I’ll turn my face, the salt spray on my skin.
I’ll watch the pipers in the sand, I’ll watch the tide slide in.
I’ll see the ferry on the turn, the seagulls in the bay
And watch as Rossall’s scarlet sunset gently slips away.    

I’ll miss the Point , the wind and clouds, the view that wealth can’t buy

I’ll miss the sands that stretch for miles, the sea that meets the sky

I’ll miss the freedom of this place and matter not the toll

My heart will stay at Rossall Point when Heaven takes my soul.

Harry Batty

 

Unseen Shell

A worn winkle shell, colour unknown.

Thin now with the wearing of the sea and sand

Empty. Sounding hollow when I tap.

Feel the sworls, the internal spiral

Going to a soft point,

Where once a gentle creature lived

Secure upon a rock -holding tight.

Gone now, lost to the sea,

As it's home lives on for me

As I tap - tap - tap.

Kathleen Curtiss

Sampher

 

Full-bodied women

                pickled, ankle-deep in brine,

enticed by salty succulents,

    along the tide line.  

  

Red-legged terns

                punctuate pale terracotta

searching for crustaceans,

     sand dancing reflections in mirror pools.

 

Keepers of the drowning flats.

     They  rise to sky

                with soulful cries

                                as sea kissed river eases home.

 

Adele V Robinson