Poem of the Week: Corncrake

for Paul Masterson

Mr Keegan in primary school back in the seventies declared
we’d be lucky to hear the corncrake’s call in our lifetimes,
such was its scarcity. But I did twenty something years ago
on Bofin and accepted its benighted blessing.
Back again this year in May and from the uncut meadow
in front of the Harbour Lights bookshop, I heard its call
if you could call it that. Now our daughter gets to carry it on
and dreams of its winging return to the Congo and Southern Africa
in winter, its washer board riff, its ‘crex crex’ in Latin.

Joseph Woods’s collections include, Cargo, Monsoon Diary and Ocean Letter (Dedalus Press)