Sedentary

Martin Kennedy Yates

Sometimes

I’m up with the lark

scaling the skies, but I guess

on the whole – on balance as it were –

I’m more of a treecreeper sort of a bloke

exploring the rugged bark of the great grey oak,

just loving the feel & the form & the texture of it all

and feeding off that, yes, maybe I’m just a nuthatch

kind of guy, being just so wary of predators

& lies that I twitch & flinch from

all those spreading,

soaring

hows

& whys.

The Science

Devotion to a specific branch of study, or particular field of exploration, is often characteristic of both scientists and poets. My poem reflects this and ponders on my own tendency to focus on small details in life and art, sometimes avoiding larger, more ambitious, concerns. In the poem, two similar birds, the Treecreeper (Certhia familiaris) and the Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) are offered as metaphorical equivalents for these traits. Both feed from the bark of mature trees and are classed as “sedentary” birds, because they spend their lives living and breeding within a relatively small area. The BTO’s (British Trust for Ornithology) Ringing and Nest Recording Report (2025) indicated that the majority of such birds venture less that 1km within their whole lifetime of up to 8 years for the Treecreeper and 11 years for the Nuthatch.

The Poet

Martin Kennedy Yates is a poet and artist from the West Midlands. His poems have appeared in The Rialto, Magma, Stand, Poetry Wales, Finished Creatures and others. His debut pamphlet, ‘This Wilderness & Other Concerns; won the Broken Spine Chapbook Prize in 2025. He is currently working on a collection of poems with the working title ‘Bird-Brain & Other Flights of Fancy’ drawing on the features and habits of many different bird species.

Next poem: Swift Return by Andrew Stone