Collaboration with Roberto Gonzales Garcia.....
Written in response to his photograph, 'Bay of Egrets', published on Whole Terrain. (June 2018)
First Light
Amid the clunk
and clang
of an industrial shipyard
a colony of cattle egrets
settle
at dawn
in reed beds.
Ships' noses nudge
and poke
through the dark ripples;
the egrets take their chance,
don't move a wing.
All night
hunched,
clicking of beaks,
but no fighting.
At dawn's loud light
they sway and rise as one –
obliterate the static hoists, boxes of dead fish –
to stain the Spanish sky
in pink and white.
(Inspired by Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Urban Wildlife Finalist, Roberto Gonzalez Garcia's photograph, Bay of Egrets, 2017)
First Light
Amid the clunk
and clang
of an industrial shipyard
a colony of cattle egrets
settle
at dawn
in reed beds.
Ships' noses nudge
and poke
through the dark ripples;
the egrets take their chance,
don't move a wing.
All night
hunched,
clicking of beaks,
but no fighting.
At dawn's loud light
they sway and rise as one –
obliterate the static hoists, boxes of dead fish –
to stain the Spanish sky
in pink and white.
(Inspired by Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Urban Wildlife Finalist, Roberto Gonzalez Garcia's photograph, Bay of Egrets, 2017)