The marshland echoes
with the screams of the gull mob
a heron’s fish lost
We took an evening stroll along the beach, inland, behind the beach, over the high shingle slope, between Aldeburgh and Thorpeness is a wetland. We saw a heron, it had what looked like a fish in its beak. The gulls mustered and harried the hunter in mid air.
Blade thin herons wait,
Secreted in the reed beds,
Striking at silver.
On the way back from Arsenal smashing Spurs 5-2, I sat on the train looking out of the window as I often do. Between Harpenden and Luton Airport Parkway station, the train passes over what looks like an old English country scene, apart from any built up area. With a hamlet and millhouse alongside a meandering lazy river, even lazier tributaries feeding it. It was in one of these tributaries I saw two herons, standing still, amongst the reeds. I like Herons, there’s something fragile and elegant about them. And that beak built for fishing makes them look slightly prehistoric.
