I saw this red kite

The other day on the way with Dee to Raigmore hospital, up there unmistakable, a red kite ... and it reminded me of a little poem I composed (wrote?) two years ago...











Along the wind




Fork-tails young and old

fly in from every direction

using fine the scuttling wind

that scythes and sighs its way

through bare-boned winter trees

‘cross Black Isle hills and fields

pregnant invisibly, yet green

with newly stirring life,

and a dual carriageway verge

sheltering furry twitch-nose

trembling, timorous beasties,

that always need the other side:

the lively red kite’s prey

not now, some other day.




They come more easily to feed

courtesy of the much feared race

that not so many years ago 


would drive them from the earth.

All that forgotten and forgiven

in these more lightened times

when perfectly they gather

here, together aerobatic whirl

they loop, to swoop, to scoop

what is today on offer then

wing flutter up, together twirl

air dancing like the bagpipe skirl

and thus bring some strange peace

to we who wait on summer’s lease. 




Bryan Islip

February 2011