NORMAN MacCaig tops acute observation with his usual individual flourish in this bird study. It comes from the splendid posthumous compendium, The Poems of Norman MacCaig, edited by his son Ewen (Polygon).
RINGED PLOVER BY A WATER’S EDGE
They sprint eight feet and –
stop. Like that. They
sprintayard (like that) and
stop.
They have no acceleration
and no brakes.
Top speed’s their only one.
They’re alive – put life
through a burning glass, they’re
its focus – but they share
the world of delicate clockwork.
In spasmodic
Indian file
they parallel the parallel ripples.
When they stop
they, suddenly,
are gravel.
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