Natural facts & When the redstart arrives
by David Caddy
[ poetry - march 10 ]
Natural facts
1
Gypsy kids skin stags leaving guts
outside Frampton House for all to see.
Poaching pools clutch knives
slit throats make a heap of heads,
telling Taylor he can stuff his shoot.
Animal rescue workers fight
like ferrets in a bag,
occupying a quaint urban quarter.
When a man knew horseshit from sprays
could count lapwings, was paid in pence.
When a man knew bend from hack,
near from far, grist from grizzle,
it was all subterranean, somehow
so hidden and unsaid like a kettle
with a silent whistle. A concentration,
a deepening of the gaze.
2
At home we came to speech late
sometimes not at all.
Fear of sky, those higher,
bound us to village, the call.
Following trails across Three Corners
a stillness clings to boundary.
How the template can break,
be lived as something else.
We ate incessantly, like broilers,
storing for those times that might come
that might steal us from mother.
We ate in silence. Instead of emotion,
pigs and dogs one knew and fed.
In the face of thought, undug plots,
grass to be cut, the lure of light.
An absence of fruit, reading matter.
When the redstart arrives
for jk
When the redstart arrives
I say goodbye to the heron
by the fork and start to shiver
as if the flu were a time slip
rather than a recognition
as if I could drink less
and still possess this slimming
design on my nerves and rise
to put away those pails of
spilt milk that course like lurchers
with their tails between their legs
betwixt and between keepers Œn¹ finders
and still have time to take back
the bacon or re-consider the fate of those
unaware it is night. And it is night
when there are no lights to put out
nor feral edging only this plump bird
that has come to tap, tap and bob.
I look at this start under candlelight
and swear it has a luminous beak
black seedy eyes and curse it will
drink me under the table or be turned
into a pirate. I throw corn at this migrant
and consider flight. Oh, no, no. Come back.
I¹ve got more. Look no absolutes, conkers,
insecticides, our mutual track, voracity.
Would sooner chisel and turn my hand,
gouge, every twist tenuous, and avoid the ice.
