Homage, Orby Head

When I can go no farther, and the maps are all
blue, I count the birds at the end of the world:
swooped down from their russet watch-towers, long,
low lines of silhouette stoop to the waves,
piebald buoys bob in the lea of rocks,
plump-bellied gourds with red waders on troll
the bricky stone. Arms clasp over pulled up
knees, salted by the wet perimeter
of light. Gathering in the past, shapes stream by,
great auk, Labrador duck, and Eskimo
curlew in venerated waves, all plucked,
bloodied, and damned. Shingles crack in the tide's
ruddy contusions. We have everything
to lose, and have again and again.

                after Seamus Heaney

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Copyright © 2017 Susan Edwards Richmond All rights reserved
from Before We Were Birds
Adastra Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission