Sally Festing
Winter Visitors
for Caroline and John
A group of theologians assembled at the Sorbonne decided they would withdraw scoter-ducks from the bird category and call them fish. Abbé de Vallemont, early 18th Century.
It seemed they’d hardly come
that far too soon they were out
in the glittering rain and cold:
feet deep in snow
in the teeth of a blizzard.
To the riddle of greeting,
a glass-of-wine-and-then-farewell,
I wanted to add And May God help
but faces still in the empty chairs
made me flip up the moment when
only wind shook space between us
as light fell over the long sea wall
and we picked our way like crabs on stilts,
feathering sky, scale-slipping dykes
across the marsh.
Later, offshore, another gathering –
scoters, the twitchers said.
Through a rainspecked telescope
I saw them, common and velvets,
flicker like a ballet.
Some dived in, bird-fish,
uptailed, vanished.
Some flew over, their wings dissolving
corridors of air.
The rest tossed up-down, duck-black
on the waves’ up and down.
Overwintering at sea,
the weight of moon tugging tides
to the rim of world,
they’re too far off for us to hear.
Page(s) 60
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