Gull Poem by Don Pearson

I lived for years in a deep dark cave
Where the flowers never grew.
Then I moved here to the world’s end
Where the screaming seagulls flew.

I found myself by the swirling sea
With crumbling cliffs of sand.
Surf that is neither sea nor air
Lies between water and land.

I walked one night by the dappling moon
and found an injured bird,
Oil-streaked, half-dead, a broken wing
and a cry I hardly heard.

The gull lay right at the water’s edge
Adrift from all she knew.
She feebly mewled. I lifted her
And cleaned her feathers through.

We sheltered from the Winter’s rage.
Two castaways we were.
Although I thought she needed me,
As much, I needed her.

As she returned to health again,
I feared with each new day
That she would fly away from me
Yet hoped that she would stay.

My gull now rides the seas once more
And soars at the river’s mouth,
I wait, and long for her return,
And stare towards the South.

No man can tame a wild free bird
And no true friend would try,
But I am lost without my mew.
I wish we both could fly.

I am caught in the tidal zone
The waters toss me high
Then I plunge to the depths again
But can neither swim nor fly.

The storms throw landslides to the beach.
Huge waves wash up the drowned,
Smash their bones on the tumbled rocks
With an endless roaring sound.

May/Aug 2001