Seagulls and the sea
Shall I regurgitate
those tired old tropes?
Barbary apes, Rule Britannia
Mottled Utrechtian paper
With the keen eye of a British expatriate
For the bleeding obvious
Yet, when I see Gibraltar my heart swells
Not just with
Tales of past victories, sieges endured,
Ramparts withstanding, bastions defended
Or something half remembered
Of Lord Nelson, John Lennon
Not only with Joyce’s beautiful song
“O and the sea, the sea crimson sometimes like fire,
and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens;”
Or the Moorish castle
Neanderthal caves and Sandy Bay
… I think of seagulls circling under the sun
To a bird, experts of their prehistoric Treaty
Proudly warning
huoh-huoh-huohing
With every strut and squawk declaring
This is mine, my home
You will not make me leave
Daring dogfighters
‘gainst rapacious raptors
The streaming squalling squadrons
Take flight to fight
And yet again gain
Winged victory
Of course I think of the apes, our history
This extraordinary community
But more often than not I think of
seagulls and the sea
…The little space
You made on the Rock
For migratory birds
Like my family; me.