plover

For the grace of this plover
skittering at the running wavedge
taking lightly briefly to wing
then again to quick legs
in the sun the surfroar
whom do I have to thank?

She doesn’t care perhaps
Her stifflegged beauty
neither gift nor weight
in the waves’ uprush and fall
as she stalks and stabs
life hiding in the oceanwashed sand

With or without me the sun
the sky’s far blue the thundering
of whitemantled green waves
or this stray gray feather hers
or another’s generous letting me
see the offshore breeze it rides away