The Seagulls And The Sea

Shall I regurgitate those tired old tropes?

Barbary apes, Rule Britannia

Mottled Utrechtian paper

With the keen eye of a British expatriate

For the bleeding obvious

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Yet, when I see Gibraltar my heart swells

Not just with

Tales of past victories, sieges endured,

Ramparts withstanding, bastions defended

Or something half remembered

Of Lord Nelson, John Lennon

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Not only with Joyce’s beautiful song:

“O and the sea, the sea crimson sometimes like fire,

and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens;”

Or the Moorish castle

Neanderthal caves and Sandy Bay

… I think of seagulls circling under the sun

To a bird, experts on their prehistoric treaty

Proudly warning

huoh-huoh-huohing

With every strut and squawk declaring

This is mine, my home

You will not make me leave

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Daring dogfighters

of rapacious raptors

The squalling squadrons

Take flight to fight

And yet again gain

Winged victory

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Of course I think of the apes, our history

This extraordinary community

But more often than not I think of

seagulls and the sea

…The little space

You made on the Rock

For migratory birds

Like my family; me.

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