Westering Home (Poetry)

A foreign beach, hospitable, serene —
mild winter refuge from grey England’s chill —
where navigators gather, senses keen
and restless to display their innate skill.

The call comes like a wave that swells and breaks,
subliminal, with urgent echoings,
and suddenly the sky’s a boiling lake —
a wheeling choreography of wings.

As though agreed, in unison they stream
towards the west, their map an instinct etched
in light on cloud — the angled rays which gleam
across the sea, their route on water sketched.

No landmarks, yet some magnetism guides
their journey over oceans, pulls them on;
they read the wind’s warm message and the tides
susurrate a mystic, timeless song.

Who knows what rhythms beat, what pulses pound
and drive the blood to answer, birds to fly
their clockwise miles attuned to pangs of sound
whose frequency escapes us, pitched too high?

Do their eyes sweep the far horizon’s curve,
expectant as those mariners of yore
grown hungry for the land, each tight-strung nerve
anticipating that first step ashore?

What stimulates an avian’s small brain —
do they cry out for joy and recognise
the contours of their homeland, seen again —
do their hearts leap, does pleasure blur their eyes?

Perhaps they share the comfort and relief
all migrants know, wherever they may roam,
returning for a stay, albeit brief,
in one small spot identified as home.