by david butler

The sky a draining estuary;

the bay at low ebb, where

a party of oystercatchers

darts back and forth like

animated sewing-machines to

tack down the tidal tracery.

All day, the primordial

fester of the marsh offends

the palates of passing DARTs.

In there, time stagnates.

A moorhen judders, then

a heron pterodactyls

down to stalk the shallows,

hunches patient as a pedant

over the glaucous surface;

image of the poet.