Over 16s Winner
The Last Slender-billed Curlew, by Emma Price
When the last one cried
With no other to hear
Did she dissolve into nothingness
Until just a voice remained,
Echo on the wind, softly fading?
Or did she wait a while
Wondering why no answer came.
Was she lonely? Resigned?
Or did she continue,
Hoping to find the others
Wherever they had gone?
Was it sudden death - a gunshot,
A fox’s jaws? Or gradual weariness
Until she wandered for the last time
Into long grass
Taking her voice to eternal silence.
Under 16s Winner
Curlew Song, by children from Ysgol Caer Drewyn, Ysgol Bro Dyfrdwy & Ysgol Y Waun
Pawb/Everyone
Pen yn fach a’i big yn hir, Croeso nôl i’r Gylfinir.
Ysgol Caer Drewyn
Soft fluffy feathers and a long curved beak,
The curlew’s future is looking bleak!
Help the chicks survive and thrive,
We must act to keep them alive!
Protect the brave and beautiful birds,
From being trampled by the herd!
Whistles in the meadows like a summer song,
Chilling by the coast all winter long.
Pawb/Everyone
Pen yn fach a’i big yn hir,
Croeso nôl i’r Gylfinir.
Ysgol Bro Dyfrdwy
Mae Pegi Pig Hir mewn perygl mawr,
Wyau gwyrdd di dodwy ar lawr!
Ei blu sy’n guddliw yn ei gynefin,
Rhaid gofalu am y gylfinir prin!
Coesau fel brigyn mewn nyth ar y bryn,
Yn mudo yn nôl o’r môr i’r llyn! C
hwiban swynol fel cân dros y tir,
Galwad am help yw glywed yn glir.
Pawb/Everyone
Pen yn fach a’i big yn hir,
Croeso nôl i’r Gylfinir.
Ysgol Y Waun
Long beak and fluffy feathers,
In farmer’s fields of flowers and heather.
They hide in the grass and are hard to find,
To save their nest we must be kind!
Their whistling call is heard from far,
Like an alarm bell of a car.
They hunt on the beach to find a treat,
A crab or shrimp or worm to eat!
Highly Commended (1 of 2)
Curlew by Brian Devine
Curlew – Crotach – Numenius arquata
See the curlew with its long beak
restore the soul of Christ in Clonmacnoise,
down the raw pass of Christ’s soft throat
in a darkened tomb.
In the three-day stillness,
it fingers with its nimble bill
the great King’s mystery,
translating Him to life.
Hear its haunting call
bubbling from the shoreline of Lough Key
up the Curlew Pass
and when the Gaelic chieftains –
O’Rourke, Mac Dermot, and O’Donnell –
heard the same mouth-music
kin to every dusk in Ireland,
they ordered pipers to claim its piping –
to raise the Gaels’ long-injured soul,
knowing it, at last, grace-righted
in the evening rill of a curlew’s voice.
And if we too reclaim the curlew’s notes
and by its probing bill escape
the crouching death petty gods impose,
should we not, too, win that curlew pass:
the raw and open throat of Heaven?
[Note from the poet: This poem was inspired by Clonmacnoise and the Curlew Pass. The curlew is found at Lough Key (of the famous annals and Mac Dermot’s castle) but only its voice may be heard at the misnamed Curlew Hills (where “rounded hills” is the correct translation from Irish). Glynn Anderson writes that “Curlews have a very soft pliable bill with which they probe. The very end of the bill can open to grasp . . . and is as nimble as an elephant’s trunk. This ability (is) called rhynchokinesis.” – Birds of Ireland, Collins Press, 2008, p143. At Clonmacnoise, an ancient carving shows a curlew inserting its bill into the entombed Christ’s throat at Easter, restoring Him to life.]
Highly Commended (2 of 2)
Curlew by David Mullin
Numinous
bow-beaked
messenger
of the
new moon.