Motorway With Owl And Geese Poem by Sally Evans

A motorway, overwhelmed at dawn
by thousands of geese unwinding their skeins

on fields of translucent white, tea-leaves
to stir a storm, doodlebugs thudding

on pilgrimages to Ireland and Mourne,
whose wings beat three feet

above the warned wave of cobles
coasting the migration morning

of international geese, where our dawn
crosses under theirs.

A day on, our southward return
against the enticing rhythmic moon

setting a pace for language in its field-wise face
and the swing of strong wings -

the white owl lobs through the darkness
past cars' predictable pale darts

correcting the motorway's passive, unattended
calendar, its clock of ghosts.

[1997]