Early-Morning Seagulls On Clapton Common Poem by C Richard Miles

Where the pond laps cool at Clapton Common.
With still no sign of malign, incipient stormclouds,
Skittish seagulls swirl, whirl, wheel and scream loud
Around the flashing, splashing fast-spouted fountain
A grey-white whirlwind of bright wing and feather
Merged together with the urgent surging water.

Run-fast massed spray splashes on the dappled surface
Wearing now deftly soft-wash dash of whiteness
Till high clouds, bound tight with dull, dour, fine drops,
Shroud the sky, and paint the little ripple-circles
Grey as the gulls to simply spin out, gentle,
Still not wind-pushed hectic from the centre.

Sundry stormclouds of an urban work-week
Also darken brightly-dawning morning outlooks
Like the gathering grey-wing whirling gull-flocks,
Spirit-sapping like the ripple-damping duckweed,
Figures start to swirl around upon the paper
Screaming, like the early seagulls, time to labour.