On a May Morning
On a May morning there’s talk of the festival, an after party and sore heads, while gulls siren and pass overhead, leaving curlews the fields and oystercatchers the shore, and petrels the wide grey sea, passing over turf roofs thousands of years old, and memories of hearth and an ember that holds the tune of life, caught up by hands new and seasoned, and a tide of sound lifts heartbeats and tears spill bittersweet as the gulls in the morning, and there’s local beer and miniature bottles of wine and stamping and clapping and belonging the circle of life, and there is the way that lives turn out, and death comes final and dark, then fizzes again on a May morning, and it’s memories of father and grandmother, sister and brother, and the child that was, and even during the deepest darkest bittersweetness the gulls still pass overhead, and curlews call in the fields, and on a May morning there’s talk of the festival, an after party and sore heads.