Poetry Thursday - Just as this Island Belongs to the Gulls by Herman de Coninck

Hans Frank, Seagulls (1924) (via)

Just as this Island Belongs to the Gulls

Just as this island belongs to the gulls,
and the gulls to their cry
and their cry to the wind
and the wind to no one,

So is this island the gulls,
and the gulls are their cry
and their cry is the wind
and the wind no one’s.

Herman de Coninck (1944-97) was a Belgin poet who "aimed to produce poetry for the masses", and also a magazine editor, essayist, and prolific letter-writer. He died of heart failure in Lisbon, where there is a plaque to him that reads: "Fairy Tale. Once upon a time there was a man who was always just." (via)

The poem is combined with Hans Frank's print (colour woodblock on oriental paper) in a British Museum publication, Birds.