Ken's Poetry

Evening And Seagulls

The seagulls pass in one direction only
braking and bouncing on cushions of air
along a lone highway across the sky.
They do not turn or veer.

This twilight hour I watched them pass,
in easy shuffling patterns,
a path I could trace with my finger
across the smooth grey emptiness.

It is not the wind that makes it so.
I watched crows jerk across the way
and sparrows spiral against the flow;
but the seagulls pass in one direction only.

Perhaps they circle far behind the hill
to tease me with their endless numbers,
or settle in flapping chorus
on the sands beyond my view

or weaving still, a curve of scattered beads
on waves of air
out over the bay where Cornish hills
lie in the evening mists.

I only know they drop beyond the cliff
from the rim of my seeing,
and am content only to wonder why
the seagulls pass in one direction only.