Recite this out loud:
Seagulls flying, crying, crying
To the wind, to its sighing,
Eagle-eyed, (seagull-eyed),
Watching, spying
On a man cooking fish.
Seagulls calling, never falling
From their flight, never stalling
On the wind, till from the wind
Landing, standing
By the man cooking fish.
But unless
There is a screaming,
Stormy day or worse
I guess
A gull has lesser meaning,
Yet its glory seems a curse
What used to be
Reduced to be
A hopping, perching, lurching,
Flopping, scrapping, flapping
Bunch of feathers
In still weather
By the sea.
Yet from weight
By the wind set free,
Careless now of gravity,
Its fate
Will always be
Slave to the wind’s depravity.
Without fail
Forced to sale
Upwind hauling, mauling,
Downwind sliding, gliding,
Ever soaring
On the roaring
Of the gale.
Stranger still,
The human story
Seems to me to be perverse.
Our free will,
That seems a glory
Which we’ve turned into a curse.
Free to choose
Or to abuse
That freedom in dissenting
From the best and so preventing
What we could be
And the good we
Now must lose.
As part of all
We hold most dearly,
Freedom cannot be divorced.
At heart of love
Lies freedom, clearly
Love’s not love if love be forced.
But what fate
Befalls those left
When selfish freedom’s had its way?
By our great
Self-love, bereft
Of life, they never had their say.
All that’s lost,
All the cost
Of freedom needs repaying
Or a human life I’m saying,
Is so cheap,
On fish-head heaps
We’re tossed.
And can we
Be truly free
At heart of our humanity?
Or will we
Forever be
Slaves to the heart’s true vanity?
Once, a man
Said, ‘I AM;
I am the problem’s answer.’
Surely madman, bad man, chancer?
Then he died,
Crucified.
Sad man!
All one night his friends went fishing
Close inshore, perhaps were wishing
He were there. Ashore, they stare;
With seagulls, spying
On the frying.
It is him! Cooking fish.
Read this: John 21, v 1-9.
Happy Easter.
