Creatures Great and Small

The Hitching Stone

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Creatures Great and Small

Encounters with all Manner of Fabulous Beasts

Blues for Bunny

Nature

designed you to run free.

Threading the hawthorn hedge and

crossing the open field like an olympic sprinter

vanishing

into the burrow's womb-like gloom.

You

were born a prisoner.

Sentenced to life in a four foot cell

you have no need for lightening speed

or ears that hear a wing beat.

Your all round vision only confirms

the totality of your cage.

But

you will never know

the burning pains of hunger or the stab of fear;

the smell of dawn in a summer meadow when

the blackbird sings for joy.

I could

set you free right now

and by that kindness I would surely kill you

by cold, starvation or the stoat's sharp tooth.

You believe

that I am free

because you cannot see the bars of contract and covenant

and the chains that I have made from obligations.

I shall not be in the meadow to hear the blackbird sing

at dawn tomorrow.

My cage

is no less strong than yours

and just like you ometimes I pace the floor

and dream of freedom.

But I can no more hunt or set a snare

than you could dig a burrow

to live through the freezing night.

Both prisoners

we accept our cells

because they also keep us fed and warm.

We shall not die of freedom,

you and I.

Walking with Sophie (The Short Sighted Spaniel)

Sophie says that walking is good for the heart;

I ask if it cures broken ones?

She bites my heels, maintains she doesn't know.

This week she ate a book on Zen

and claims she sees the world through different eyes.

The weather though is foggy like before.

Striving for more you loose the things you have;

chasing a reflection in a pool she drops her stick.

To illustrate the point.

But what of lonliness and loss I say,

and love that took yet could not seem to give?

Sophie tells me that conditional love is no love at all.

To prove it she steals my sandwich

and runs off up the hill.

Short sighted or no, she sees much more than me.

The Barguest

Don't turn around.

his black paws on the cobbles make no sound

but you can feel the hot breath of the hound.

Your heart begins to pound.

He could be on you in a single bound;

only your shoes would be found.

Don't turn around

Even a Dog-Earred Dreamer Deserves a Sonnet

Gemma the spaniel snoozed in her chair

of the Famous Explorers Club in Mayfair.

In the warm afterglow of a double pink gin

on the deep buttoned leather she rested her chin.

She dreamed of people so wild and exotic

and of Princes and Pashas, dark and despotic.

how they welcomed her in to each palace on high

and bade her farewell with a long and sad sigh.

She dreamed of the mountains they crossed in the night,

surprised robbers and bandits and made them take flight.

How the people all loved her and begged her to stay

but she packed up her tents and went on her way.

And perhaps in those hills there's a small sacred place

where a strange local goddess has a soft furry face?

THE CHANGELING BRIDE

You go to other lovers in the night.

In early spring I see you sniff the air

and feel the warming soil beneath your hand.

You start to hear the dog fox bark at night;

I see the restlessnesss behind your eyes.

Late in the night I wake to find you gone

then furtively returning with the sun,

your hands and feet are wet and smeared with dirt.

Last night I heard a wounded creature scream

and felt the snare that bit into its flesh;

I found you gone and ran outside to see

you slipping back under the garden fence.

You go to other lovers in the night. I know.