Mink

The mink delved among nettles and dead bracken

Moving quick and ferret like

It was brown, as a weasel

It slunk under rotten willow limbs and logs

Until it came to an abandoned rabbit hole or badger set

And sunk in

As one youth chased it and wielded a log above his head

Prepared to throw it

The mink bravely poked his body back up above the parapet

Of the bank

It stood there proud and unafraid

Perhaps more curious of the danger

Because it was both threat and interest that the two parties showed

We the onlookers on the other side of the bank could not have offered threat only curiosity

But the youth with the log was less curious more a real threat to the mink

In the event we stopped the youth from throwing his weapon at the animal

Out of humanity for its off spring as her death would have left them helpless in all likelihood

King Stink the Mink King

 I stole the peat

I stole the ground

I stole from the moorhens and ducks I found

I stole the water vole from out his hole

And made it mine

Now they pay my toll

 

I stole the coot

And kept as loot

Their egg,

They beg

Me to return it in time

But finders Keepers

What I find is mine

Between the railway sleepers

And under the pine

 

I sit upon my Lordly throne

Do what I like, to each his own

The otter’s pelt is what I smelt

And I burn it in my fire where it melts

There’s nobody better than the mink

There’s no more handsome a fellow

On the levels I think

 

The otter’s time has been and gone

I threw him out like I did the swan

Or else in his neck my teeth did sink

And his blood made wine for me to drink

 

I am king of great wealth

King am I, me and myself

Go fetch my coat

Ye servant stoat

Go lay down flat

Ye Meare cat

And humble yourself in my presence

Bring in fowl and game and pheasants

Today we feast in my name

King Stink or Darius the cruel

It’s all the same

For I wear the crown and the levels is my jewel