Sanderlings are pitching like rafts
ignoring the line of surf-sorted shells
above their station where,
just an hour ago, they crossed
a hundred times hunting invisibilia
in the sand, their cardinal effort
to stave off hunger.
Hearts all thrumming
a hundred beats a piece
from one wave to the next,
until some other, some larger
winged thing, comes close
and they fall into the sky
before returning to the sand
skating low to the next place
just there, meters away.
Thank you Logan! Beautiful poem to start us thrumming into the new year!
Thank you so kindly! I’ve been spending so much time with birds lately (from a distance, passively) and have been gifted with a chapbook-ready collection of-and-for avian species. This one has served me as a bit of a zen reminder. Be here now.
Thank you always for your support and for this amazing platform!
Logan, I just came across your poem. Two images come to mind. Not only that of small birds darting along shore’s edge, but large rafts of them floating effortlessly upon rising and falling waves. In either manner, they are little engines of energy to behold. Blessings, -Darrell
Hear, hear, Darrell! The birds here on this Upper Left Edge…they hold such amazing spaces for us. Between the sanderlings (the subject of this poem), the guillemots, cormorants, pelicans, buffleheads–so, so many more–I am reminded again and again that each of us has a place; we don’t need to know it, per se, just exist in it. Zen teachers are flying and floating about us all the time. Cheers.