Do You Speak Seagull?

‘The Conversation’ … Photo – Tammy – Tenby, South Wales, 1993 by WHB.

SPEAKING SEAGULL

Hello bird

I haven’t seen you here before.

Talk to me

Tell me your story

I wish you could speak to me

Do you speak seagull?

Then you could tell me what you want

I’ve been fishing

You want food, don’t you

I spend my life fishing

I’m sorry, nothing you would like here

And diving of course

Bet you like fish

Can you dive?

And worms?

I was the best diver in my class

Do seagulls eat worms?

And I’m still a beginner

I have got some breadcrumbs

‘Cos I’ve just left school

I’m here on holiday

I’m only two

I’m only seven

I’ve just got all my grown-up feathers

I’m starting big school after the holidays

Better go now

Better go now

See you next year.

See you next year.

I wonder if she really understood me

I wonder if he really understood me

Goodbye … Must fly …

Cheerio … Must go …

THE FORSAKEN MERMAID

Photo: WHB – taken in Aberporth, Ceredigion, on the West Coast of Wales, facing towards Cardigan Bay and the Irish Sea

She emanates wistfulness
melancholy, sorrow
bound to her rock
out of sight of her sea.
Andromeda’s prison
awaiting her Perseus.

She thinks of the sea,
beseeching the ocean,
to roll in and take her
to wash her away
to be lost in the waves
to swirl with the kelp
in that pellucid world
in those welcoming depths
to join the white horses
to laze in the rock pools
bask on the corals
where once were her friends

No coteries here
no sisters, no mermen,
no one to favour her –
offspring or lovers.
That whirlpool which bred her
the spray which had bathed her
sequestrated and gone now
no longer her milieu.

Is this always and ever
is this life’s stricture
retribution for what?
For loving her kingdom
her aquatic birthright?
Or for being in form
not fish, fowl nor fiend?

For living a life
half tide-borne,
half earth-child,
hermaphrodite, epicene,
ambiguous, undefined,
a shadowy being,
crippled, malformed?

Her joy now –
the sunlight,
the breeze
and the dew
the song of the seagull
the far sigh of the sea.

Only these now remind her
of when she was free.

Poem: WHB (Copyright)

Dubrovnik … From The City Walls – # 2

[ Photo Blog  #66 ]

I now continue my tour of Dubrovnik with more photographs taken from the superb viewpoint of the magnificent 16th Century walls surrounding the city, during my visit there in 2006.  It is amazing to realise that, only 15 years before my visit, the city had been under siege from invading forces of the Yugoslavian People’s Army during the Croatian War of Independence.

At that time Dubrovnik was a designated UNESCO ‘Protected’ World Heritage Site and the attack on the then besieged city shocked the world.  It had been caught up in the war being fought in the former Yugoslavia.  The military engagement saw the city under siege from both land and sea and constant shelling destroyed many of its ancient baroque buildings and marbled streets.   Many of Dubrovnik’s inhabitants were killed or injured during the bombardments.  Most the buildings in the old town were struck by shells.  The city walls were badly damaged in many places, and its palaces, churches, its monastery and fountains were also badly damaged.

Incredibly, by the time of my visit, Dubrovnik, as you can see from my photographs, had, at a huge cost, been largely restored to something approaching its former glory.

 

Do You Speak Seagull?

‘The Conversation’ … Photo – Tenby, South Wales, 1993 by WHB.

SPEAKING SEAGULL

 

Hello bird

I haven’t seen you here before.

Talk to me

Tell me your story

I wish you could speak to me

Do you speak seagull?

Then you could tell me what you want

I’ve been fishing

You want food, don’t you

I spend my life fishing

I’m sorry, nothing you would like here

And diving of course

Bet you like fish

Can you dive?

And worms?

I was the best diver in my class

Do seagulls eat worms?

And I’m still a beginner

I have got some breadcrumbs

‘Cos I’ve just left school

I’m here on holiday

I’m only two

I’m only seven

I’ve just got all my grown-up feathers

I’m starting big school after the holidays

Better go now

Better go now

See you next year.

See you next year.

I wonder if she really understood me

I wonder if he really understood me

Goodbye … Must fly …

Cheerio … Must go …