Lynne Wycherley
The Watcher by the Wash
Peter Scott at Guy's Head, 1933-39
His father’s ghost still presses to the pole,
driven, wilful, while he
is learning to be still,
wait for whatever wings may come,
lapwing, widgeon, pink-footed geese.
His hands race
as a flock rolls its cloud
and tumbles, whiffling, through itself,
while the Wash breathes bronze,
the flats’ dark skim,
its glaze rewritten daily
by brents, redshanks, dunlin.
Once blood was his pigment,
a boy in a punt, snake-flat
in its gliding shadow. A reek
of smoking metal in the reeds.
For every death a thousand birds
leap from his brush –
a muscled rush – umbers,
ochres, tannins. All night
the wild geese wheel and full.
Cry in his heart’s salt hall.
driven, wilful, while he
is learning to be still,
wait for whatever wings may come,
lapwing, widgeon, pink-footed geese.
His hands race
as a flock rolls its cloud
and tumbles, whiffling, through itself,
while the Wash breathes bronze,
the flats’ dark skim,
its glaze rewritten daily
by brents, redshanks, dunlin.
Once blood was his pigment,
a boy in a punt, snake-flat
in its gliding shadow. A reek
of smoking metal in the reeds.
For every death a thousand birds
leap from his brush –
a muscled rush – umbers,
ochres, tannins. All night
the wild geese wheel and full.
Cry in his heart’s salt hall.
Page(s) 40
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