Wildlife

I did not intend writing a poem about wildlife, and certainly not this poem. However, before my divorce, I did used to live in a place where foxes and deer, and other wild animals, would emerge from the wood to rest, play and (at least the herbivores) eat. Not the cheeriest of pieces, but I hope you enjoy it none-the-less.

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We used to have wildlife in our garden.

Attempted photos of a vixen lying in the sun,

While her cubs played on the bottom lawn.

Baby animals making time for fun.

Winter deer leaving tracks across a pruned rose bed

Nibbling at anything green along their way.

The snow showing each delicate footstep,

And a bigger patch, where a young fawn lay.

Was it our wood? Where the green woodpecker hammered

And the pigeons and the blackbirds flew?

Lying awake – another sleepless night – I hear

A tawny owl to-whit, waiting for her lover’s to-woo

In the long summer hours, corvids caw on the roof.

Woken at dawn, I ponder life while

You, downstairs, slept by your sons.

In the dark of dashed dreams, our silence defiles

The gulf between us. Your push, my retreat.

Rabbits at silflay, their kits now grown,

Flee the aggressor. Your dog barks yet again:

‘She’s alright! Leave her alone!’

No wildlife now. The plot’s a building site:

Trees and shrubs wait for a fire, as yet unlit.

This house, this land, no longer a home:

Just memories for the children. From before we split.