Barncle geese

I hear them among the shadows,
Dark shapes bruising the blackness
Quarrelsome,
Their gossiping and gaggle
Invisible on the marsh
Ghostly and ghoul-like.
These northerners invade our sky
Cutting wedges through our clouds
Like great ships through morning mist.
From the trees they fall like ripe fruit
Of the sea, emerging from the keels
Of great ships and ancient sea-rotten wreckage,
To marvel and still the eyes of old sailors
And mock their shanty tales.

They gather as a great army
To plunder our land:
But how marvellous they are
These conquering heroes,
These star-born travellers
Singing of tundra, saltings, grassy islands
And peaty bog pools in Arctic haunts,
Beneath a never-dying sky.
Then like a pack of unruly hounds
Their continuous gnuk voice spills
Into the autumn sky
As they go in search
Of the silver apples
Of a different moon.