BIRDS
A 5-color reduction linocut
12" x 18" print size
15" x 21" paper size
Hand printed on BFK Rives paper
Edition: 13
Sold unframed
Price includes shipping within the U.S.
A copy of the poem will come with the print.
SHAGS AND SOLITUDE
Cormorant, corvus marinus, "sea raven"
17 shags balance on the high wire that spans
the Passagassawakeag at the Narrows
where the Upper Bridge used to be.
They shuffle flat webbed feet, better suited
to swimming than perching, teeter,
face downriver, beaks tilted into the breeze.
Some preen feathers with hooked bills.
Others hang inky wings out to dry. They croak
companionably. Shit milky streams of guano.
A mile upriver, on a quiet inlet, a lone shag
straddles a dead limb over the water.
Maybe the others were mean to him, Tom says.
We chuckle, but I want to stand with this bird.
Escape the crowd, its glib camaraderie.
Let my thoughts slow to the flow of the river.
Leslie Moore
SPIRE: The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability
2023, Issue 7