Gull & Leviathan – A Fable is a poem by P.S.Clinen. It won the inaugural Lane Cove Literary Award for poetry in 2014.
White bird, he flew across the blue
To desolation’s shore.
‘Cross peaks of stone that cloak their bones
with iron shrub and hoar.
About the coast of island ghosts
Did flutter that lone ‘gull
He spotted then leviathan –
And perched on living hull.
With water spout spoke mighty trout,
“Why comest thou to me?
My back you greet with combing feet
As though I were your tree.”
Stately gull, puffed up and full,
Bespake as claimant then,
“Far I’ve flown, that I might own
The hills of Kerguelen.
My brothers’ song, forever long
Is what I flew to flee.
Their prattling tide made me decide
There are no gulls like me.”
Spake again, Leviathan
“Why comest thou to me?
You see me doze within the throes
Of icy reverie.”
“To purge that din, a horrid sin –
Birdsong of avian!
Long I yearn for taciturn
Delights of Kerguelen.”
Spake again, Leviathan
“Why comest thou to me?
Thy weathered plight, thy feathered flight
Does not relate to me.”
“Mistake me not, thou patriot,
I am not here for thee.
I’d thought this place bereft of face –
Alone, I came to be.”
Spake again, Leviathan,
“Thou art a thoughtful bird.
How comest thou to disavow
What kin hath ne’er heard?
Fool adrift – go mend this rift!
Do as your kin would do.
Turn back again from whence thou came,
This clime is not for you.
Thy treasure, lo! Thy pleasure, oh!
To be part of a flock.
I am but one, my friends – I’ve none
Around this dismal rock.”
“Oh giant fish, just hear my wish
Pray don’t proclaim me rude.
Though here be few, thou knows that two
Can’t share of solitude.”
Spake again, Leviathan,
“Then thou must leave me be.”
Then gull took wing and fish did fling
Itself into the sea.
Leviathan of Kerguelen
Swam round his claimed land.
He’d soon derive birds can’t survive
Beyond those blackened sands.
White bird, he flew across the blue
Away from that bleak shoal.
Away from peaks to search and seek
With silent south the goal.
But Winter rose and wings they froze –
Snow drifts but his flock’s twin.
And he in white was lost from sight,
Just as he once had been.
-2014
P.S.Clinen 