Long Moorhen Poems

I'll look for you
in the deep, cobalt blue
of a mountain lake,
or the startled crake 
of a moorhen,
flushed from its nest,
or the idle word, said in jest
over a steaming mug,
as we huddled and shrugged
off the cold...

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Skulking between the thinning clumps 
Of tattered sedge
A balding coot despondently calls,
Scratching Blackbirds scutter deeply 
Into a Hawthorn hedge;
Whilst, creeping stealthily,
Gathering darkness onwardly crawls.

The blackened Moorhen washes the clinging
Soot from his feathered form,
Rising above the...

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Haibun 2017 - Me Feeding The Ducks Winter 2010/11
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Feeding the hungry, ducks, geese, swans, moorhen, coot, and gulls. The image depicts me in the winter of 2010. I hasten to add that to this day...

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Once were badgers in leafy dale, 
once were rabbits and foxes too,
once were pheasants in shining copse where cuckoopint and coltsfoot grew.

Once were songbirds in privet hedges, 
once were bluebells for mile upon mile,
once were...

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Life on the lake today, well, checking my notes i can say: Swans a pair, mallards, so many, widgeon a few, one shoveler i viewed too. Then came the geese, a long way from home,...

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The winter time has had its day,
Was what we all believed,
As signs of spring were everywhere.
But seems we've been deceived.
Evil April brings Arctic blast
Now more snow has arrived.

It seems winter must dominate,
And tell springtime it...

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A good friend once told me that kingfishers know the secrets of the universe 
But dear friend, what about this moorhen on the rivers verge?

And as I sit and wonder what my moorhen thinks
Around me...

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A shoal of roach fast scatter at my shadow.
Mother moorhen toots as chick ducks in
and out of overhanging ivy.

A boating flower floats along intact
with shadow's faithful dancing follow,
on gravel, then over weed and back.

Across the...

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Black, cracked ice on a brooding fen,
Lamented calls of teal and moorhen,
Echo across frosted tundra and fell,
Accented by a single, mournful church bell.
Knitted reeds, hard bit by the frost,
Mute swan and mallard huddled and lost
In...

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