Oystercatchers by Jim Stewart

For long after dark
and before first light
a clamorous pair

of oystercatchers courts
in an echoing circumference
of air and sky.

Anxiously they whoop and wheel
by day, by night.
The repetitions mean

that she’s in season
and will concede
his ancient cry

that seed should not be lost.
Makeshift, a nest will be let
and brooded on,

their squealed jitters
pooled in yolk,
in the hot work of embryos.

Their keening need
will fold its sound,
bred in the humid shells

they’ll make — to shift
and free (peculiar as themselves)
new birds.

© Jim Stewart

 

Ed – From:  THIS, Tay Poems by Jim Stewart; book launch 14 November at Toppings, St Andrews. W N Herbert’s (p)review of THIS is available HERE.