Poem
Andy Brown
FROM FIELD NOTES
FROM FIELD NOTES
FROM FIELD NOTES
Towards the river’s seaward turn the flow is slow, meandering. Wide tidal flats at the sea’s low tide support a spread of hungry birds. Silt brought down from inland fans the delta, between the reeds. Here molluscs & crustaceans breed. To the eyes of walkers on sterile dunes, where only the lonely skylark nests in monotonous marram & shifting sand, the estuarine mud-flats seem a bland expanse. But to hungry oystercatchers the casts of worms & clams are treasured finds. They stun their prey with single stabs. Shell duck, eider & avocets scythe the rich mud. Glutted, they roost inland, waiting for the sea to ebb. Knot flock in thousands where the eel-grass Zostera grows. Duck, Dunlin & Brent Geese gather. I note these quietly in my field book…
© 2006, Andy Brown
From: Fall of the Rebel Angels: Poems 1996-06
Publisher: Salt Publishing, Cambridge
From: Fall of the Rebel Angels: Poems 1996-06
Publisher: Salt Publishing, Cambridge
Andy Brown
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1966)
Andy Brown is Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. Originally he studied ecology, but is now a poet, a literary academic, and a contributing editor to The Kenyon Review. Previously, he was a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation’s creative writing courses at Totleigh Barton. His most recent books are Fall of the Rebel Angels: poems 1996-2006 and a forthcom...
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FROM FIELD NOTES
Towards the river’s seaward turn the flow is slow, meandering. Wide tidal flats at the sea’s low tide support a spread of hungry birds. Silt brought down from inland fans the delta, between the reeds. Here molluscs & crustaceans breed. To the eyes of walkers on sterile dunes, where only the lonely skylark nests in monotonous marram & shifting sand, the estuarine mud-flats seem a bland expanse. But to hungry oystercatchers the casts of worms & clams are treasured finds. They stun their prey with single stabs. Shell duck, eider & avocets scythe the rich mud. Glutted, they roost inland, waiting for the sea to ebb. Knot flock in thousands where the eel-grass Zostera grows. Duck, Dunlin & Brent Geese gather. I note these quietly in my field book…
From: Fall of the Rebel Angels: Poems 1996-06
FROM FIELD NOTES
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