Erosion The eels were tumbled along the shore Like a multitude of child drawn stick men, And the air tanged of eel rot and ozone. The yellow dog and me, we breathed it in And labouring against the remains of the wind, Walked down to the wrinkled, sea wet sand. The yellow dog danced, searching scents, While I rambled round sand locked lagoons Seeking sense. What force was needed to Unlock the congers from their rocks and wrecks? Death came slowly and cruelly for them, Innocent victims of the sea's indiscriminate brutality. The yellow dog grows bored with the dead eels, And looks for driftwood to be thrown and fetched And thrown and fetched till a new odor diverts. The sand gives way to old granite that stands Recklessly in the face of the sea's savage wrath. The age-old urge to reclaim the land compels The sea's endless soldier waves to grind Stone to sand, on and on, crashing, caressing, Then crashing again with timeless patience. Sea's ally, Wind, aids the transformation, Eroding stone to dust to sea sodden sand. The yellow dog bursts the reverie, barking At an unseen, but not unheard, adversary. And so, we retrace our steps, the yellow dog and I, Leaving the eel ghosts behind us to rot on the sand; To be shared between the ill tempered gulls And, as the tide rises, the implacable all embracing sea. Summer Evenings On June summer evenings we used to sit, The yellow dog and I, by the boundary stream And watch the sun go slowly and reluctantly down Like a skulking sulking child sent early to bed. The cows chewed relentlessly in the nearby field, Their tails flicking to and fro fending off flies, And the bats flew and clicked incessantly. I sat and watched as they gyrated and gybed Like airborne scottish dancers in a drunken reel. The dog's teeth clicked too, on a rancid bone Made piquant by days of lying in a half forgotten hole Awaiting awakening canine memory. An owl floated noiselessly onto the chimney top And, once settled, hooted softly as fair warning To the field mice and the voles, who formed its prey, That the silent nightly death hunt would soon begin again. Dusk faded into night and still we sat, the yellow dog and me, Listening to my favourite English country sounds: Of badgers snuffling and shuffling in the woods across the stream, The dog fox huffing impatiently for his vixen, And the occasional death squeal of another victim Of the callously cruel hunters of the English country night. At last we stole away into the old stone cottage, The yellow dog to take up her sentry duty at the foot of the stairs, Her restless sleep punctured by piquant bones and slow rabbits, And me to my soft quiet bed to slowly slip to sleep. (c) Paul Greenhow 2001 |
Paul Greenhow |
"In mid-life I am a sometime banker, sometime photographer and sometime poet. I have enjoyed poetry since I first began to read. Then it was Ted Hughes children's poems and now it still might be Ted or it might as easily be Byron or Donne. I don't write to emulate my poetic heroes but to satisfy the imagination of my curiosity. English by birth, upbringing and inclination, I am now living in Ohio, USA and practicing my accent for the enjoyment of the locals and looking for work!" |