Photograph by Richard Lovelock. See also https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=682878398095070&set=a.149287128120869 for other wonderful photos.
Many thanks to David Cooke for publishing this poem in the Summer 2026 edition of The High Window, and to Richard Lovelock for allowing me to use his wildlife photographs from the voyage.
The Story Behind the Poem
This happened on a sea day somewhere in the Atlantic.
I was reading a Jack Reacher novel on a lounger when June, from the next cabin, said a bird was trapped by the cabin window. Ray, from the cabin opposite, identified it as a storm petrel and explained that these birds struggle to take off from solid surfaces because of their specialised legs, weak feet and long wings. They normally need open water, a wave, or a cliff edge to gain lift.
After much discussion about what to do, June fetched the guest lecturer and wildlife photographer Richard Lovelock. Wearing cargo shorts and looking entirely unfazed, he gently wrapped the bird in a towel, carried it to the stern, and launched it into the wind.
For a few seconds it seemed uncertain whether the bird would fly.
Then it caught the air and disappeared into the sky.
The Poem
DAY 92: THE SOFTEST THING
A storm petrel falls from the sky,
feathers plastered by rain,
wings folding under the pull of gravity,
one half alert to waves,
the other drifting, chest rising in tiny rhythms.
Then Richard Lovelock appears,
hands practiced, careful,
beard salt white, eyes scanning the storm.
He kneels by the cabin door,
swaddles the bird in a towel,
feeling the pulse, the fear,
breath trembling through feathers.
Passengers angle for photos,
oblivious to the small life
he carries to the stern,
a small message
meant for sky, not sea.
He throws the bird upward,
expecting a miracle.
Gravity, that unsentimental editor,
offers no guarantees.
For three long beats: nothing.
Then instinct kicks in.
Wings catch the wind,
rain stinging, spray on the deck:
it rises, slipping into the open sky.
Publication
Published in The High Window, Summer 2026.
About the Project
In 2024 I travelled on a world cruise and wrote a poem for each of the 100 days of the voyage and am now getting the book ready for publication. This poem is Day 92 of that sequence.
