Riley and Boris, aka Buster, at Island House, Fordham
zoologic
celebrating the creation, its creatures and plants, the elements, seasons...
Catspreading
A sonnet for Chloë the kitten and her mistress
Be content, like Chloë, curl and uncurl
withdraw your claws, be fluffy and sleep
in the day, allow yourself to be stroked,
roll, yawn and stretch all your limbs – catspreading –
arrange your fur and lick it all over,
even when visiting priests are watching.
Test your claws on the rug, bum in the air
(a downward dog). When walking, parade yourself,
make an entrance, command the room, shamelessly
rub against people, sniff chair legs, chew plants.
Eat with a pounce, attack! but drink secretly.
Be magnanimous to all – unless they are dogs.
Be content with the life ordinary and gentle –
for remember, it’s just one of several.
Oystercatcher
For my daughter, Bridie
Hear the noisy oystercatcher
in the early spring returns to
stony field and shingled foreshore
and the bank of highland river—
desolate the wild river
strewn with rocks from winter flooding—
cries arrival of the birth-time
of the year, and winter’s leaving.
Urgent, high and bright her ‘cleeping’
fresh as arctic highland airstream
clear as icy highland waters,
in the time when buds are swelling
when the sunny coltsfoot flowers
lead the way for leaves to follow,
and the white of blackthorn blossom
in the hedgerows could be snowfall.
When the year’s first lambs are jumping,
rising light is casting colours
like a prism at the dawning
lustrous also in the evening.
Then the black and white and red bird
sings the song of our firstborn
cries the coming of our daughter
at the feast of the spring maiden,
Bride, the Gaelic springtime maiden.
As in southern lands the stork
red and black and white the great stork
carries in her beaks the babies—
in the language of the old tales—
so in the North the oystercatcher
black and white and red she is,
body, soul and spirit-coloured—
in the mythic way of speaking—
is the midwife of the season
brings the first of our loved ones
our own lamb, our early flowering:
Bridie, our beloved daughter.
House Sparrow
The street corner bush with the buzzcut
blasts noise like a boombox (bass broken)
belting it out by the houses, not hip-hop
but birdsong.
As I stop by, the off-switch is pressed,
silence arrives in the squat green globe,
its residents waiting, watching, fearing,
perhaps, a feline visit, or worse,
another terrible terror attack
of the trimmer: their own private
Nightmare on Privet Street.
When I have passed, a speculative tweet
from the low, leafy world, ignites another
spectacular cacophony –
chirrupophany – sparrotorio –
relentless and loud with relief
or indignance, or gossip, or joy,
boasting or trolling
or whatever it is
sparrows tweet to each other
bunched in a bush
the original twitter
shrub gone viral.
From the collection Then Delight Rushes Up In Me
Topiary at West Dean College, Sussex
A Birds' Calendar
For my granddaughters, Alice & Naomi, Christmas 2021
January: Morning star frosty and clear
Braveheart Robin sings in the New Year
February: The long march to faraway summer
Robin the piper, Spotted Woodpecker drummer
March: With a screech, Oystercatcher jets in
To stoney river beach, announcing Spring
April: Warblers, Dunnocks, Pipits, all
Listen for the Cuckoo's call
May: Uproar in undergrowth, hedgerow, shrub
Blackbird is home with a beakful of grubs
June: Midsummer woodlands ring
Where Woodlark, Thrush and Blackcap sing
July: Herring Gull wheels and dips
On the grab for crab, mussels, fish – and chips
August: Golden Eagle under the sun
Sees Grouse, red deer, crystal waters run
September: on thistle and teasel seedhead
Goldfinches flash gold, black, white and red
October: Barn Owl silent, gliding
Haunts the moonlit, hallowed evening
November: Grey Heron in drizzle and fog
Waits for stickleback, perch, goldfish, frog
December: Holly and rowan shine
With berries where Fieldfares at Christmas dine.
From the collection Then Delight Rushes Up In Me
Glasgow Green
Lev, the lion-hearted hare
Lev, lovely hare, long-legged, sped
headlong over tussock, grassy hillock
tumbled tunnels in the ryegrass
wheat, rows of beet, threaded
needle-like through tangled growth then
angled out over open pasture, fast
flowing wind rippling fur
he within it arrowed
as a salmon in a stream, or
a falcon, falling death, descending like a dart.
Lev, with his brother
half-brothers and sisters
tribe of browsers, nibblers
under the hedge at the edge of morning
the first pale promise of dawn, drawn
out to the bounty of fields, savouring
sap, sorrel, clover
crimson and white
bitter vervain, vetch
bitten bark of elder
willow, aspen, apple
bursting onto the palate, crushed
coursing through blood.
Trickster, whiskered twitcher
twisting this and every which-way
ever-waking watcher
eye bright
ears silken sound-receivers
each fine fur-fibre wired, tuned to
every tick, click, cry, shudder
of drumskin earth at fall
of foot, claw, pad of paw.
Tensed in the light electric air, hare
a-quiver, aspen-hearted dodger
dancer, fencer, puppet
strung on a thousand strings.
Lev left with his brother, Bel
born as their mother died
orphaned at the roadside
fostered by fortune, fending
for themselves, their first meal her last milk.
Extract from Lev, the lion-hearted hare, available here:
Fordham, Cambs.
Clee Hills
Buster and I
When the wind kicks up the leaves
as they come pouring from the trees
and the ragged sky
goes racing by
that’s the time for Buster and me
to run headlong into the breeze.
When the sun rolls down the sky
shooting farewell rays up high
the day is gone
work is done
now’s the time for Buster and I,
westward into the gold we fly.
When the days grow barely light
and gloom persists from morn till night
when freezing rain
spatters the panes
then even Buster stays inside
sleeping by the fireside.
Buster Finnegan
to the tune of Michael Finnegan
There was a young dog called Buster Finnegan
He was eating up his dinner-gen
Got it on his nose and chin again
Good old Buster Finnegan! Begin again.
There was a young dog called Buster Finnegan
Barking up a right old din again
Sent to his cage he just can’t win again
Good old Buster Finnegan! Begin again.
There was a young dog called Buster Finnegan
Sniffed the dog next door called Lynn again
Hoping that it’s time to sin again
Good old Buster Finnegan! Begin again.
Siskin
Angels, muses, birds, true love,
choose to appear
not as you will but when they are ready.
Or perhaps, as they will
when they know you are ready.
Suddenly siskins, fluttering green
feathered ocarinas,
whistling orchestra, is lifted
up from foraged floor
into the alders’ awning of twigs,
fine lines etched on the sky,
catkins and last year’s cones.
Then delight rushes up in me,
ready or not,
at this flock of bright joy.
From the collection Then Delight Rushes Up In Me
Zoo-illogical verses
What the Dinosaur!
A rhino saw a dinosaur
He’d never seen such things
When dino charged, then rhino thought
‘I better had grow wings’.
Rhino took off from the earth
Defying nature’s law
So, looking up into the sky,
A dino saw a rhino soar.
The Hippo
The hippo is a fearsome beast,
Though eating only grass,
And if he finds you on his patch
He’ll bite you on the ass
And as his mouth’s so very big
Your bottom fairly small
When hippo chomps down on your bum
He’ll swallow you and all.
Seahorse
A seahorse went to Dundee
To dive and swim in the sea
She had no saddle
So went for a paddle
And when no one was looking, a wee.
