Lifting with one lazy stroke from stunted blackthorn
you glide in the silence over sedge
then almost brush the rustling carpet
of dry reed’s autumn seed heads.
Your mate follows, on a higher flight path
alert for any movement your passage startles.
Your cruel dispossession is fully resolved —
you own the marsh again, to harry as you will.
Sky-dancing in the spring, your grey wings
flex easily in undulating courtship flight.
Her larger body rolls, she catches your gift
and we lose our sense of place in Nature’s wonders.
