Looking for the Penketh Kingfisher....

 We go regularly to try and see a kingfisher on the brook nearby.

Never have.

But  often meet up with those who have...and feel a bit miffed that it's so elusive for us!

The brook is first seen at the bottom of the lane by The Potters House Penketh on Heath Road.

We stand at the bridge and gaze over...but though the view is lovely...no kingfisher.

We walk through the housing estate to the brook as it travels ever down to the Mersey...

No kingfisher...though this morning a post on social media rejoiced at the sight of it flying across the the water!

So the best I can do is post this poem written after another unsuccessful lockdown search.....

               

 Kingfisher

I went looking each day    for the kingfisher

where it had been    when it was seen

no sign   no joy   when I went looking

 

I saw the skinny long-legged fisherman

his steely presence   stately gaze

coiling his neck in a waiting game

but never the fisher-king

 

by park   canal   by river and brook

no splash of water   no flash of blue

nor was it seen on the brim of my ken

when I went looking

 

I saw swans glide and paddle   their full-wings

poised   posing for artists   cygnets behind

in a frothy wake   by some willow herb

but nowhere the Penketh bird

 

I am abandoned   covet the sight

long for his beauty   cut to the quick.

Geraldine Snape Jan 2021

 

A Poem for Thursday.

I was looking through the note book that I keep with all my bits and pieces of thoughts in, and remembered this lot. It's not quite poetry and it's not all mine. But my love of the sea, or at least of being by the sea prompts me to put this post together.

" It's all there.

It's all in the sea.

The battle of life is there,

And fate.

And the inevitability of it all.

And the purpose."

" It's the battle of life - 

The turbulence of the sea.

And life's pretty turbulent, isn't it?

I am very fond of the sea of course;

I have been fond of the sea all my life.

How wonderful it is,

Yet how terrible it is.

But I often think...

What if it suddenly changed it's mind,

And didn't turn the tide?

And came straight on?

If it didn't stop...

And came on ..and on... and on... and on...

That would be the end of it all!

L.S.Lowry 1963 [Salford artist].

 

....And I give you the faces,

- not the permanent masks

But the faces balanced in the toppling wave -----

And I give you the sea and yet again

The sea's tumultuous marble,

With Thor's thunder or taking his ease akimbo,

Lumbering torso, but fingertips amarvel

Of surgeon's accuracy....."

Extract from, Train to Dublin by Louis MacNeice[ Belfast poet].

The lonely tree

Looks out to sea

Looks out to see the weather soft

And seabirds

Flying high aloft.

Muckross Point Donegal.