The Saturday poem: Curlew by the Humber

Hooped over turned earth they stalk between tides, unlooked for but found, approaching, too close almost! The stubble of worms they take shaved clean at the root, loose grass on the breeze and shifting temporary islands somewhere behind the high ditch world enough for them – held in a gaze they do not return tracking their looped cries upwards and peeling away as one at last that I might know what I have seen. From Hide , published for the Humber Mouth literature festival.