begin to hear [haibun]

4 walks
2 islands
1 bird
walk for 306 minutes
to cross 21 days
walk for 8 miles
to listen across 2000

begin to hear

Walk 1, June 27th 06:01 to 07:49, 3.5 miles
48° 23′ 31.6” N, 53° 19′ 33.2” W
from the step      grass gravel         path      road      gravel    trodden earth       a wooden bridge                         walkway planks     a rock cleft         stand on a cliff top above Skerwink Rocks turn            the inland route   overlook a lake    two blackpoll       quad-bike-churned mud     re-join the main trial          pull up the hill      cross grass             to the step

snipe’s winnow held
on the still air
a crow calls to a robin’s song

a chill June wind
traces patterns on the water
there are no chicks yet

a humpback blows
blows blows and dives
nearby a minke whale

at the “stars and stripes” house
a white-throated sparrow
snipe still calling

Walk 2, July 17th 07:16 to 08:21, 1.5 miles
55° 28′ 19.6” N, 1° 35′ 35.9” W
a track between fields        two gates to the coast      turn north           pass the house                 above a bay        a gate     a tunnel of hawthorn         drop down a gully to the shore            approach the colony          sit below a headland turn  pick back           across the rock field                      climb the gully to the footpath        along the path             pass the house     through two gates

tread carefully on sharp-edged craters
bubbles of volcanic gas
aeons old

to and fro and to
and fro along the cliff face
the kitts call out their name

rock written with nest-white lines
July chicks tuck in
behind adult legs

white-tailed bumblebee
and meadow crane’s-bill
a sun-soaked cliff path

Walk 3, July 17th 08:37 to 09:50, 1.8 miles
55°29’28.0″N, 1°35’45.5″W
through the gate a dune-top path by a golf course tall grass      bracken             dog-walkers        two crumbling pillboxes     one runner   begin to hear the colony             through the gate  the cliff-base path             the treacherous step across the black-boulder field to sit turn   cross the boulders            below the cliff      along the dune top path drop onto the beach        to the water’s edge                       back up the beach            through the dunes through the gate

youths primp golf course greens
kitts loaf on boulders
as offshore auks bathe

soil-scrape nests
tucked-in above white ledges
scattered fulmars

summer insects emerge
to crawl the boulders
rock pipit bounces through

sweeping the fairway
the leaf blower’s blast drowns
the whitethroat’s song

Walk 4, July 17th 11:00 to 11:50, 1.24 miles
54°58’07.4″N, 1°36’23.0″W
car park metal steps         west  under the bridge and the first kittiwakes             cross the swing bridge      onto the north bank          east      to the north tower           turn             onto the quayside            east       past beach and deckchairs the footbridge     on the south bank            east below the old flour mill           round the end of the old flour mill        west      metal steps up    as the footbridge closes     to the car park

rounding the corner
I flush a great black-back
from its dead-chick-brunch

impossibly perched
kitts line the underside
of the bridge-bed girders

M’ winged fledglings
drift back and forth
above the falling tide

seabird colony splash and smell
absorbed in chat
nobody looks up