Herons in Amsterdam

I photograph the first three for mum, lose count,
commit to ooh and aah every time the prehistoric frame
slinks into a fence post, rises from the water’s edge like a seaplane.

I haven’t heard that dinosaur cry or sing,
but the parakeet is wailing away in Sarphatti Park,
while midday terraces muffle its song as if with a hot flannel.

We climb the tree opposite its green den,
enjoy the green city, trace the walnut’s bark from exposed root
to tree-top, pick moss from our fingernails, decide

this city wears a tailored jacket and mixed-metal jewellery.
We’re lingering, trying to locate a pub, a full-pint,
another walnut tree, another parakeet.

Leave the centre and the herons are there, solitary
by the water, like the ones back home.
At camp, we’re on how all things must migrate.

The geese are back by morning, nipping tents,
making a ruckus, and our chairs are damp.
We’ve never pitched so close to the water’s edge before.

The next night the drills sound. I can hear our neighbours
humping as if trying to make the colour purple.
I lose count of the groans, sleep, wake, worry about the herons.

The night workers must have destroyed the bridge
with jackhammers, must’ve destroyed the birds’ sleep.
Then I wonder, do they also mate for life?

After showering you ask if I heard the jackhammers.
I smile. Then we joke about birds squawking,
hire bikes, start our count from one again.

This time, we make double figures.

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Kitty Hawkins’ debut poetry collection, These Yellow Days (Two Rivers Press), was published in 2025. Her work has appeared in The Reading Poets: A New Anthology (Two Rivers Press, 2024), The Fortnightly Review, and other publications. Kitty won the ‘Magdalena Young Poets’ award in 2022. She is a member of the North Bristol Stanza group.