The Lea meanders, ambles on her course,
and in her brooding sleep she meditates.
Above, along, aside, reflections rise,
a flock of dreams, take wing and, graceful, flies:

Cormorant, cuckoo, coot, moorhen,
great crested and cousin little grebe.

Black headed gull, common gull, common tern,
reed and sedge warbler, grey wagtail.

Egyptian goose, greylag goose, Canada goose,
grey heron and little egret.

Mallard, wigeon, goldeneye, goosander, gadwall,
silver wood, shoveler, teal and tufted ducks.

Hobby, buzzard, red kite, kestrel,
sparrowhawk, barn owl, little owl.

Great spotted and green woodpeckers,
allusive kingfisher, bashful bittern.

As a child I dreamt of reaching high
until the sunrise pulled me to and moored me.
Detached, released, unlike that earthbound son
her dreamborn flights of fantasy soar freely.

Yesterday I finished reading Robert MacFarlane’s magnificent prose poem Ness. This, and the lists found in other writings of his, inspired this, as of course do our many sightings as we have walked alongside our neighbour, the slumbering Lea. The photo is of an adult cormorant I managed to snap in 2019: a favourite bird, comical, haughty and surprisingly graceful.
(29.06.23)

© Ben Quant 2023