Last month's poem of the month writer, Christine Bousfield, has chosen this month's poem. Christine says, "I like the energy, economy and strong sound patterning of this poem which reminds me a bit of Ted Hughes in its emphasis on the harshness of nature." Find out more about Carol and her work at http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/carolthistlethwaite sanderlings on the beach – faded waders: six weeks of courtship's colour, bonding, mating, rearing - done and gone. Now their feathers wear the Arctic wind, colours pushed to spangled greys, snow bellies, match-stalk legs strike out at break-neck speed, their high-cute factor, hard as quartz, their sooty legs, strong as jet, their wave-chase games, ruthless as a tungsten beak, each a tundra surface melt, each a survivor, full of pretty flowers with permafrost beneath