The bay along which Traverse City is nestled, in the upper reaches of Michigan, swarms with an all-together common critter of the coasts: the Seagull. As I sat along the coast, staring out over the lake, it was hard not to notice them fluttering all about, crawling on the rocks and wandering the beach, only to take wing once more to try their luck in lakeward dive-bombs.
It was they, coupled with the beauty of the scene itself, that inspired this next poem:
Beside the bay,
I heard the seagulls crying;
Oceans stretch beneath the sky
Till blue entangles blue
And miles become but one more breath—
There is air and there is water
And somewhere in between
The mountains rise and fall;
See the coast is glittering
And the sun is in the sand—
Beside the sea,
All man is set to dreaming
Of the land beyond those sapphire rings—
The gulls have all the world
But all they want is food.
