Sandpiper by Mavis Gulliver

She is a speckle of feathers
dappled by shadows
of overhanging grasses,
the only give-away
her black bead eye watching,
watching.
Approach too close
and she’s a flicker of wings,
a smooth arc swinging over water.
When she lands her legs are springs.
She’s a bob, a curtsey,
and a long rippling whistle.
Her nest is a treasure chest,
her eggs satin-glossed, ink sploshed,
smooth as pearls.
On the day her first chick hatches
she’s a demon, a vertical flight
of panic-stricken fluttering,
a crescendo
of frantic warning cries.


Mavis Gulliver, Scotland

Waymarks by Mavis Gulliver

Not a goose in sight
but all around are signs
of last night's roosting,
half a mile
of sea-smoothed sand studded
with droppings, the dune edge
flecked with feathers,
scatterings of breast down
heaped in hollows, filling
the small spaces
between sand sedge
and sun-bleached driftwood,
or trapped on tips of marram,
a flurry of restless pennants
fluttering.




Mavis Gulliver, Scotland, UK

A Curtain of Wine Bottle Tops by Mavis Gulliver

Africa Remix Exhibition

Down the high wall
folds fall
trail
an undulating hem
across the floor.
Glints of gold
ribbons of red
slivers of silver
shimmer
draw the eye
dominate
the dimly lit gallery.

Seduced
by the surface shine,
no-one notices
the flickering shadows
on the wall behind.

But I watch them
swaying
like the moonlit ghosts
of dead drunkards.


Mavis Gulliver, Scotland