Oystercatchers in Flight

Sea’s stony greenblue shatters to white
            in a running swell under noonsky of cloudlight
where on a foamed-over cropping of rock
             a band of oystercatchers faces all one way
into a nor’wester so shafts of windlight
             ignite each orange beak in this abiding
tribe of black till you clap and their risen black
             turns white as they veronica on wind and
then away with them (shrill-pitched as frighted
             plovers only harsher more excited)
and riding the stiff wind like eager lovers straining
             into its every last whim: its pulsing steady
heart-push in every flesh-startling open-eyed
             long-extended deepening sea-breath.