Gull Tide by Anne Sherry


A poet, linguist and traveller, Anne Sherry speaks fluent French and Spanish and gets by in several other languages. Her first career was in International Human Resources; her second in Change, Development and Communications Consulting. She has lived in France, the Czech Republic and Costa Rica. Anne now combines occasional consulting with a range of writing activities, notably poetry and creative non-fiction, and frequent travel. Her first collection, Safe Passage: A Memoir in Poetry and Prose was publshed in 2014.

Gull tide

 

The wind picks up as I walk

towards the beach

past Seal down Hillhead.

‘A bit blowy,’ I say to the woman 

smoking outside the Tattoo Parlour.

‘Och, it’s a terrible wind, hen,’ she says.

 

Gulls everywhere;

a world of gulls.

 

The wind throws them around

like specks of pollen in spring

flings them high against pale, thin sky

spins them across the silver sea

then inland to collapse on pebbles

until the siren swoops them up

 

and they rise again, fly up a hooley;

a world of whirl and skirl.

 

Suddenly the sun drops

behind a storm cloud

silver turns black;

to the west

Medmerry works its magic –

as the tides do too.

 

anne sherry

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