< the great white birds have come back to us >

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    the great white birds    
    have come back to the bay  
      
    those great white water birds  
    busy breeding again    
    busy grabbing their fish  
    busy swooping overhead  
      
    those great white birds  
    back from the shadows  
      
    here again  
    here in the bay    
      
    the shadows of their wings  
    making the sun blink  
      
      
    so here's a salute  
    to the Baytown Rod, Reel, and Gun Club  
    to my father and my mother and their friends  
    to all those stubborn fisherman and hunters  
    to all those who loved the bay  
      
    they put their work in  
    (thirty years of it)  
      
    they put their work in  
    knowing    
    what it could be  
      
    they did their part  
    knowing    
    what it should be  
      
    Rod, Reel, and Gun Club Fish Fry Fairs  
    and city councilmen    
    Rod, Reel, and Gun Club Oyster Fry Festivals  
    and state senators  
      
    and letters, all those letters...  
      
    letters to the newspapers  
    letters to the congress  
    letters to the companies    
    letters to anyone who would  
    (but mostly wouldn't)    
    listen  
      
    and here's a salute  
    to the fight against the shell dredgers  
    "it will cost jobs" the dredgers said  
    "there's not that much silt" the dredgers said  
    while the silt from their dredging  
    was killing the oyster reefs    
    killing the marshes  
      
    my mom, the pilot, renting a plane  
    my dad, hanging out the window  
    hanging out the window over Galveston bay  
      
    my mom and dad    
    swooping over the bay  
      
    my dad taking pictures of the silt  
    of the plumes of dredgers' silt    
    stretching  
    stretching far across the bay  
      
    my dad sending pictures to the newspapers  
    my dad proving the dredgers lied  
      
      
    the great white birds  
    have come back to us  
      
    those great white birds  
    back from the shadows  
      
    the shadows of their wings  
    making the sun blink  
      
           - - -  
   
   
   
  (And yes, it's all true. I'm not sure why I've never written    
   a poem about it. (Maybe I never felt I could.) So thank you  
   beautiful_accident for holding this competition, it was just    
   the kick in the butt I needed.)