Sarah Price
Moon Birds Between Summers
The wett-wet of a
red knot, one of scores, picks up,
sounds out on brackish
flats as turnstones show their striped
wings, and land down a bright line.
Water is thin on
even sand. Probing birds feed:
tactile, their plumage
now wine dark, and ruffled by
a grainy foam or fine grit.
Long wings shape lift, flecked
buff and bold, and low tidal
creeks glare white. The birds
gladly fall to tide-strewn grey
silt, met by layabout gulls.
Pipers flit from slight
waves, on mud like silk velvet,
as whistling calls slur
upward, and red knots half rest;
one flouts a kowet-kowet.
The wett-wet of a
red knot, one of scores, picks up,
sounds out on brackish
flats as turnstones show their striped
wings, and land down a bright line.
Water is thin on
even sand. Probing birds feed:
tactile, their plumage
now wine dark, and ruffled by
a grainy foam or fine grit.
Long wings shape lift, flecked
buff and bold, and low tidal
creeks glare white. The birds
gladly fall to tide-strewn grey
silt, met by layabout gulls.
Pipers flit from slight
waves, on mud like silk velvet,
as whistling calls slur
upward, and red knots half rest;
one flouts a kowet-kowet.