BIRLING GAP, THE SEVEN SISTERS, FULMARS & INSTAGRAM IMAGES...

 Birling Gap, The Seven Sisters, Fulmars & Instagram Images…

The Seven Sisters lined up along the shore like dishevelled 

Horses about to begin a race with no starting gate,

Not level of course. Yet the enormity of the chalk cliffs startled,

As a tetchy tide rushed forth to hack and claw at their faces.

And the siblings remained silent. Rigid. Unruffled.

The grassy cliff edges somehow and inexplicably urged

One forward to take a peek below but with unsteady gait,

As fulmars, taking advantage of updrafts, hurtled 

Towards the clifftop and turned to swoop down, as if in races.

Then away for another acrobatic circuit they surged.

The younger human visitors however, were more intent 

Upon being photographed leaping and posing, the fate

Perhaps of Instagram devotees. And on cliff edges they chortled

And checked their smiles on phones for any traces

Of what wouldn’t prove cool in their accounts’ sad content…

Pete Ray

19th March 2023

Nature simply carried on being natural as a number of visitors in pairs, or groups, spent their time at the remarkable Birling Gap posing for pictures unnaturally, leaping, making heart shapes with two hands and leering strangely and sideways at their colleagues’ camera phones…

There was no real care taken at the edges of what were perilous cliffs…

Nobody fell…