ermine
The fox
The fox stalked across the field in the late afternoon light
A ragged and thread bare specimen, ravaged from the cruel cold winter
That lengthened into February
He stops looks round searchingly
Yet distracted, somehow fidgeting with his own dire experience
His own state of affairs
My mother points out the starlings swooping above him as they ready to roost
Among the levels further down along the reeds
The fox moves sleekly, slinking like a chain of bones concertinaing
And then squats to lay his scent or shit
I have almost lost interest as he becomes the grey of sky, the brown and pale yellows of winter hedgerows
May be he was the fox that ate our chickens I say to my mother
All those years ago
He is an intruder, yet somehow respected for his cleverness despite this. And I feel somehow very safe and sanitized in this my mother’s house but seeing him also vulnerable. Like seeing a thief from behind the confines of a ‘CCTV’ camera – catching him in the act. It is the interest in his survival, his spirit and hut spa. Confidence in wildness, somehow he will always be there, in the back of your mind.
Otter
Otter sleek, Minky whale black
Bitter as beer, the coal black water
Mirrors as obsidian
This corpuscular form
Meiosis divided itself
From the jelly mass of the lake
Yet never breaking the meniscus
- it bobs it's whiskers appear damp
And shining
Back rises and slinks back into the black
Great Breech Wood
I went to walk in Great Breech wood
And found myself where trees abound
The North wind blew between dead twigs
And curled the leaves that lay on the ground
My nose it twitched, my ears they itched
I felt the presence of deer and hounds
I saw a squirrel run to a trees furthest reach
And heard the forest birds song of sound
The nettles stung, the beeches browned
The Oaks were strengthened by the ground
The leaves curled in the winter furls
That twirled the wind and around me wound
And my love did call from beneath an ash’s eves
Like a satellite I was drawn to its planetary crown
Then Great breach wood was torn asunder
It gave forth lumber of Larch and pine
All of it under a winter storms thunder
Which rattled the bones of all those near
Their toppling heights and treacherous climbs
My dear lady was struck by a bolt of lightening
A love dart from the Gods struck her in her prime
And the planetary dark that ensued was a wonder
To walk in this park I felt was a crime
My romantic soul wished to lurch in search of a number
By which I could dial then bring back the time
But the forest which was wiser than mountains
Held my soul fast so alone I did climb
To birth the last hope I had of my loved one
And set her soul free her one God to find
Now alone I walked through the forest alive
Badgers scurried like bank clerks collecting
Their wad of twigs and worms like knives
The wood pecker sung the pigeon cooed
A single black bird alone mewed
And rats slumbered beneath
Rotting tree limbs
As foxes cavorted singing howling hymns
Then the forest was then quiet as a graveyard hushed
As greenery flourished
And foliage lushed
The sandal wearing saint was knighted
The night began its game
Half housed between this world and the next
Advantaged
As in the eves called the owls
And many Stations of the Cross were planted
As herbs and forest plants were avowed
Into sacred celebration
Of the moon lit majestic cows (boughs)
Who’s alien forms besmirched the landscape
And past the night with heavy sounds
Until in the dawn rose the single starlings
In the flock of chorus loud
And beneath the canopy of heaven
Wrote the names of those in shroud
To be remembered by the martyrs
Who had seen and died,
And lived then bowed
And this I saw while I was walking
All this was mine of to be most proud
Inside the Breech of the Great Wood Vaunting
And opened its vaults to the sun and the cloud
The Garden Stroll
In the early light
When witches candles turn low to smite
The earthly walkers on a stroll
Beside an ancient garden wall
Then one says to the other
“How strange!?
The brick work of Eden has been rearranged.”
As they ponder mortar and stone
They feel the feeling they aren’t alone
Then an archway becomes clear
Designated this way; ”Do not Enter Here!”
They hold hands then cross the threshold
Into a garden bright and so bold
The green’s of willow
The lush of Ash
Oaken avenues stand in stash
All look starkly like someone’s preserve
They feel darkly like they do not deserve
And then a hare and next a rabbit
Come by close as if by habit
Disarmed the intruders are quite standoffish
Then they realise they appear quite selfish
And pet and talk kind words to the mammals
Feeling next they may meet some camels
As they stand and pervade the view
The garden’s paradise changes hue
And far over a foreign hill
They see Cain fight Able, until one is killed
And open under heaven’s skies
They see rains fall and flooded lies
Noah’s Ark is there by chance
But many a bad creature takes death’s dance
And suddenly they too are running from the flood
By this they find the ties of water
Much stronger than those of blood
All washed up now on heaven’s shore
They think of their stroll to the garden’s core
And they think to themselves, but neither comment
They should not walk in wherever they wanted
Sing oh Lord
Sing oh Lord to the moon and the sky
To the land of the Blind
Where the pity birds fly
And bees buzz merry like the fruits and the flies
In the land where the pity birds fly
Sing oh Lord to the ones who have many
And the ones who are lost
But have not crossed on the ferry
Sing oh Lord to the Queen of the sky
To the Land where the pity birds fly
Hear their song, like a balm on the cherry
Like a sweet salve to the unchained mind
Hear oh lord how they sing you a tune
In the land where the pity birds festoon
Hear oh lord how their hearts are not heavy
With the price of their lives or the hanging moon
Hear oh Lord just what they may stir
In the land where the pity birds flew
Duck Pond
Deep in the duck pond
Where the green weed grows
And the straw is yellow
Next to the track,
Where the ivy creeps beneath the Alder and Willow
Which brush their stems and stem their flow back
Deep in the duck pond
Where the green weed grows
Ducks fight and splash about
It could be a war or a turn about
Or a pair of lovers in a spate
One who loves, the other who hates
But deep in the duck pond
They see to their deed
Where the willow weeps in the green duck weed
Down in the duck pond,
Where fellows blow their horn
And the little spirited sprout
Sings for the sweet summer corn
While the West wind blows
Then across it the Easterly is torn
All along the deep duck pond
Where all the birds were born
Severed heads on severed spikes
All seem dead but go ask the tyke
Shadows shake in the shallows like
The deep duck pond
Of the bad old Pike
He swims about, he asks not twice
He sees a snout, then snaps his vice
And there he has you, pulls you down
Into the depths of the duck pond to drown
Where hell is a spirit on the water
And the wind chills the slender necks of swans
And the rails with the moor hens daughter
Falls to the pails and the sweet shorn sun
Where the kale sways in the shallows
And the bulrushes blow their seed
Deep as heartache over the water
Of the deep duck pond with the green duck weed
