I
They lift
Out of the maternal watery blue lines
Stripped of all but their cry
Some twists of near-inedible sinew
They slough off
The robes of bilberry blue
The cloud-stained bogland
They veer up and eddy away over
The stone horns
They trail a long, dangling, falling aim
Across water
Lancing their voices
Through the skin of this light
Drinking the nameless and naked
Through trembling bills.
II
Curlews in April
Hang their harps over the misty valleys
A wobbling water-call
A wet-footed god of the horizons
New moons sink into the heather
And full golden moons
Bulge over spent walls.