POETRY

POETRY

GRAND DESIGNS

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments1 min read1.1K views

Herons and egrets rise from the same shared ground –

a silted tidal estuary – rise

among expanses of marshland grasses,

vivid as shamrock, darker than samphire;

fly north on measured wing beats towards the sea,

to fish where the tide is slowly ebbing.

 

Beside the dirt path in the wild border

are campion, vetch, and bird’s foot trefoil –

scatterings of gold and purple and pink

and ancient names among the stinging nettles,

those tale-tellers of broken habitations.

 

Each sandstone block of the now redundant

two mile long sea wall was planned, ordered, paid for,

quarried, cut, carted, meticulously laid.

Now, in its foundations, scurvy grass grows.

 

 

 

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POETRY

SOME BRIGHT MORNING

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read820 views

You open the new, free app on your iPhone:

a digital, audio library

of bird song and bird calls worldwide

courtesy of Cornell University –

algorithms, satellites, Tech Bros,

the Groves of Academe and philanthropy

in accidental constellation.

 

***

 

The mix of salt marsh and salt meadow stretches –

reedy and golden and green with sporadic

silver blue lagoons – nearly to Wales

across this expansive estuary.

‘Heron!’ you whisper, ‘Red Shank! Meadow Pipit!’

A beat. ‘Whimbrel! Little Egret! Brent Goose!’

A pause. ‘Skylark!’. And I can hear the bird –

above the gentle soughing of the wind –

distantly but actually, somewhere

unseen to the north-north west, its song

ascending in bright air.

 

 

 

 

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POETRY

OVER THE HILLS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read744 views

Vast banks, bluffs of clouds are moving steadily,

unerringly it seems, from the west – some

darkling with the makings of rain, others white

like the little egret that rises

from the sunlit reeds, and flies westwards, across

the wide estuary to Wales and a channel

of open water. Beyond is a range

of low hills, whose fields are bright with sunlight

or deep shadowed by chance clouds. Out of sight

are mountains, valleys, coastlines, a sea.

 

The little egret’s ancestors have travelled

aeons for just this imagined moment:

reflections passing in fleeting water –

a white bird, shaped, hulled, like a feathered

sailing clipper, and islands of cumulus.

 

 

 

 

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POETRY

LANDSCAPES WITH FIGURES

David Selzer By David Selzer4 Comments1 min read1.1K views

Just beyond the redundant sandstone seawall

a stonechat flies from reed to reed – golden now

for autumn – singing its brief notes with each flight.

In hidden lagoons among the reed beds

are thousands of migrants, pink-footed geese –

with their incessant, metallic chattering –

wintering from Greenland and from Iceland.

 

***

 

Swaddled we bask on a secluded bench

facing the westering sun, which glints

on the river’s one navigable channel

mercurial on the opposite bank.

Even in clear weather the far coast

is too distant to be detailed. Today’s

light haze obfuscates its hilly fields

and three small towns – except for a sixties

high-rise of slum-clearance social housing

that looms, eyeless, like a far off grave marker.

 

***

 

Out of some profound lake filled from mountain moors

an ice age made, the river rushes white,

over scattered glacial debris,

through a long, deep limestone vale, flows

past oak woods and stands of willows, edges

pastureland and industrial estates to shape

this vast estuarial landscape – that today

is gold and quicksilver.

 

 

 

 

 

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POETRY

AUGUST MOONSCAPE

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read689 views

A sturgeon moon is rising through wispy cloud,

making the waters of the bay a rippling,

molten orange. Out of sight, above the cliffs,

on pastureland bordered by oakwoods, a pair

of tawny owls is hunting amongst

the sleeping sheep, the owls’ long calls

trilling through the dark. A heron, with its

harsh cry, is crossing the moon’s fervid wake.

 

A small boat chugs into the bay, the searchlight

at its bow scoping the jutting rocks

the spring tide is covering. There is a sudden,

mechanical splutter, a muffled oath,

silence, the waves’ soft fall – then the tinkering

of metal. Meanwhile, the moon and the earth

have turned. Somewhere, like silvery submarines,

atlantic sturgeon lurk. On the far headland

is the white tower of a ruined windmill.

 

 

 

 

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POETRY

MUCH THAT HAPPENS

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read686 views

Much that happens everywhere leaves no record:

the crayfish in the shallows beneath the bridge

briefly in July; the sudden gust of wind that shakes

the ancient palm beside the tennis courts;

the fresh paw print drying on the fence panel

where a fox had clambered up at dawn;

in the rough lane of earth and flints, the litter

of sweet chestnuts from the overhanging trees,

and violets flowering on the banks;

the horses uneasy in the stable

as September lightning fills the valley;

the narrow river rumbling with rain;

on the patio’s wrought-iron table

an empty glass trembling.

 

 

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