Herring Gull Walk
Up the Square they came,
two herring gulls
out for a morning stroll,
heads nodding
and toes tuned out,
feathered hands clasped
behind feathered backs,
like fellows of The House
taking a matutinal turn
in Christ Church Meadow,
dissecting the niceties
of Kant and Schopenhauer.
Down the Square went
a warble of finches,
rose-pink, green and gold,
decorous like convent girls
dressed in their best,
Children of Mary going
to Sunday Mass, who
nodded and curtsied
to the scholar gulls,
then fluttered away
to the old bandstand,
hoping for hip-hop and rap.
Naomi
