Monday, 28 January 2013

The Orphan Seal

Part One

For Ted Hughes

From folds of curling, foaming sea
frothy as laps of whipping cream,
a head pokes out, and then
it's gone - back down
to re-enter the jam
of its missing mum,
from out the pram.

A missing seal, a lonely pup;
no mother's milk to idly sup.
A cow alone, a calf orphaned:
a seal come broken;
bright eyes piercing awful,
wide and wild from freezing water;
a lost child, beloved daughter.

Now searching, eyeless, in the dark,
a blanketed searchlight from afar.
Rolled beneath the beam of the ocean's keel,
now come the calls of the orphan seal.

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