Summer poem – of calves, community and being an outsider, an incomer….

Posted: July 12, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Poem | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“All things must pass. Mankind is as grass.”

 

Summer poem

Two calves adventured, maybe misdirected

or spooked? Perhaps, a dog?

dived into the grassy basket of Matilda’s field,

bovine misadventure,

not equine, resurrected.

 

In the morning,

a delicious day, already sun baked by nine

June, “in like a lion”,

jet steams, cats cradled patterns

streaked the blue backed, split of sunshine,

and I found one calf

nestled into a bower of bracken

nettled and serenaded by the marshmallow pink and white

of baby breathed hawthorn,

bordered by buttercups.

There it stayed, the whole lazy summer’s day,

nervous, ill at ease

unwilling to gambol or feed

unwilling to make hay.

 

Three farmers came

cattle calling

as the evening slipped away.

Stealthy summer sunset.

Dinas Head diminished,

shadowed

lost horizons

a fishing boat scarred by light

a duskling starshine

in the breathless bay.

 

“They’ve only been out a day or two,

everything a new sensation,

even the sunlight is new.

Don’t know grass

Nor bonded as a group.

They simply don’t understand

what it is

they’re meant to do.”

 

We herded the two runaways out of the gate

leading them lane wards

as opposed to astray

through the greened canopy

outfoxed by foxgloves

the elders floated subdued, ethereal amongst the elderflower

motes, particles, as we passed

behind Bryneithen

and into the railway sided field.

The man I walked alongside of

spoke wistfully

of those, “our friends” likewise lost,

of the ties of this small community

the roped weight of history.

And a hint, a nod perhaps,

towards the incoming stream

a Westwards eddy,

and suggested, maybe implied

the consequential claim:

fragmentation, discord, disunity.

 

In T shirt, shorts and wellies

no farmer, I,

we talked on, joked a little,

a slither of gossip, happenstance,

and yet, a sense, a fractioned hint

of difference

akin somehow, to distance.

Discontent with

the immigrant?

 

The calves were happy though.

For now,

“Let them eat cake”.

 

And then

Dusk dropped the lid

and we parted.

“Perhaps you’ll write a poem”

they ribbed.

And so,

I did.

 

 

Marc Mordey 12 7 14