PRAYER AT GREAT MARSH
Threshing fills shells spilled upon dunes. Worlds fold inside
this salt marsh, flow, slow as breath, their silence a room.
Waves hush the bar, fill my ear, unfold gales inside
the chittering of terns and pipers. The long tide
smooths muck silken in mussel-clicking salt creeks, flumes,
falls, spilling pewter cloud, folding hunger inside
clenched oysters. Ebbing their silver light, sloughs divide,
drain my eyes. The creaking of periwinkles blooms.
The sky gulls shoulder fills their tongues, unfolds inside
hollow bones of wings. On whistling quills, crows ride
low, weaving patterns of racket on a windy loom.
Seas, spilled from folds that cockles clasp, beating inside
a chambered shell where my spirit drills brine, slide
lower. I gasp light boring my rib and this room.
Emptiness fills with sound. The world unfolds inside.
I didn't know. The world shoves in where blood collides.
Gills and feathers waver silence. Then breath resumes.
My wound spills the speech of whelks. Wings fold wind inside,
filling the sky with fins as light unfolds.
Peter Munro
If you've any comments on his poems, Peter Munro would be
pleased to hear from you.
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