Fluff of white and gray,
necklace of black,
orange-encircled beak emits
a soft whistle.
Scamper toward the withdrawing tide,
a mini Tour de France.
One stamps a foot on the bubbling sand.
Up come the worms
to meet their fate.
Amid the dunes
new homes pop up
displacing these feathered migrants
who return each Spring.
The lines go up.
Warning signs –
“Piping Plover Nesting Area”
Sunbathers take notice.
Unleashed dogs, oblivious,
get wrangled by owners.
Over time, they grow in number.
A precious pipe band in the sand.
—
Patricia McCue is a retired teacher of middle school science. Her poems have appeared in Woods Reader, Poetry Breakfast Literary Journal, Otherwise Engaged Literature and Arts Journal and Winter Splinter, an anthology. In her free time she studies and plays Traditional Irish Music on the violin.
