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Herring Gulls

A POEM

By Oliver Barres | May 1984

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.

The Hidden Years

A workman asked at a village door,

“Have you a bed, a chair,

A fallen…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…

Envy of the Empty Air

Of what do they dream

— the white-robed monks?

while we

with half-shaped forms

from…