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.
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…
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.
What Is the Purpose of Poetry?
Poetry was once understood to be an anthropological episteme, a way of knowing, if only through a glass darkly.