The Gulls at Isles of Shoals

    The Gulls at Isles of Shoals

    Ah! the ubiquitous herring gull.
    How they haunted me as a child:
    At times, placid as mallards,
    Or bending their wings in the breeze,
    Hung motionless,
    Poised to fall
    on food

    I held up
    Bread crusts and fish bits
    While they fought to take
    The morsels from my hand.

    At Isles of Shoals
    We saw their rookeries on Smuttynose.
    (the grim shack and weathered headstones
    overrun with pale vines of dodder)
    My sister and I walked there
    A hundred years after.
    No one told us there was murder done.

    The gulls there wheeled
    Around us screaming.
    As we passed among the nests,
    Some birds would swoop
    To steal a hatchling
    From another's brood.

    We left in horror
    As they tore
    The chicks apart;
    Screaming, in midair.

    We both stayed silent
    On the long row home.

Aug 23, 2006, 5:34 PM:

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