Herring Gulls
A POEM
They quarrel in low tide mud
Over scraps of rotten food;
They rest on fishhouse roofs.
Retreating from feud.
They batter the air in flight,
Shrill-screaming at swifter thieves,
Swooping to carry off
What another leaves.
They circle on motionless wings,
Then ride a wind’s long rise,
Disdaining the distant dunes
And greedy cries.
Sea hunters again, they join
The endless offal chase —
Rapacious, yet seekers of sky
On wings of grace.
You May Also Enjoy
Prayer after Communion
Body, flesh and blood, feeling.
I have been here before, kneeling
in the snow, in…
Paradoxical in the Extreme
Evidently a man of coarse, even slovenly, personal habits, Auden was as meticulous as T.S. Eliot in the precision of his verse.