Back on Lindisfarne after 2 years and enjoying
a view of sandbanks at low tide from the lounge
window! Image originally from Bird of Passage 2012
blog - to whom many thanks for an illustration that
admirably suits this poem.
.
Seals Off Lindisfarne.
The solemn song of several colonies of
seals
floats over low water,
borne to the island
on bracing mainland winds.
This symphony of creation;
we, a twenty-first century audience,
with our wide-ranging knowledge,
its meaning, still cannot comprehend.
The ancients would have vested
powerful understandings
in the patterns of the song.
A well-populated sonorous sandbank
at full summer moon, an omen.
An unexpected absence of singing,
a tale to build through winters, long.
Then monks with sea-going ways
would rejoice as these, God’s creatures
rendered their unique praise.
And here we stand,
mesmerised by the tide’s plash,
near-bank splashes,
and the shimmering alto choir,
wondering, ‘Will these song-blessed
sandbanks
survive even one more generation
as the seas rise ever higher?'
