Green Sandpipers

Green Sandpipers
(River Crouch - Creeksea Essex.) 

I thought they were house martins :
fluttering along the tide line -
dancing their hornpipes.

But no - they were sandpipers :
green sandpipers
between here and there -

the far north and the far south.
Migrants in my beautiful
       river valley,

sharing my August morning -
my summer reverie.
Would I migrate if I could ?

       Perhaps.
For now I will share my treasure :
my golden fields,

the silver - shimmering tide.
They zig-zag far up river
       at a whim

     and I am left
- like all who live in time -
with absences and madrigals of light.