POETRY
On the way
we saw a badger
stark in the headlights
upright, addressing
the slope to the field
on the side of the road
head dipping in shock,
adorably guilty,
adorably myopic,
and as is nature’s way,
in rude gloss of youth
forever denied old age.
I blinked and retained
a grainy snapshot
of a nothing moment
in its glorious instant,
its everything always
reel of life.
It put me in mind
of the emptiness
without, and the
much more measureless
scission within
(had the badger
kept
a snapshot
of us?).
Earlier, a woman,
for me perhaps,
then again,
another, perhaps,
her mien shifting in
aspect as the day
wore on, like the
passing sun
on the northern rockface
thrilling and cold.
from careworn and
charmed on getting
to know us,
to naked and drained
as our stories told us,
bidden and cautious,
eaten
and old
(or the house we viewed
with its numerous cats
and chickens).
This, all told,
is all of my days
this, all said
is how it goes.
