THE MILLENNIUM CURLEW

It is
the last day
of the last year
of the last century
of the last millennium
and I am on the beach at Lympstone.

The tide is swinging.
The mussel-beds are tapping.
The white birds are queueing and calling.

Enter an ancient curlew,
just about two thousand years old.
Hello old bird! What’s new?

He tugs his long, curved bill out from the soft mud,
cocks his head,
gives me the eye.
Before he pushes his long, curved bill back into the soft mud again,
Not a lot! he says




(And can it really be ten years since I wrote this Millennium Curlew? Why, Yes it can. You can’t beat the mathematics of it.)