The Living Bestiary - Begun January 31st 2023
CONTENTS
1. Black Bear
2. Yak
3. Cat
4. Musk Ox
5. Snow Leopard
6. Polar Bear
7. Octopus
8. Mosquito
9. Coyote
10. Crocodile
11. Tree Viper
12. Tree Frog
13. Great Grey Owl
14. Chipmunk
15. Grey Squirrel
16. Sea Otter
17. Bandicoot
18. Lynx
19. Cats (Tribe)
20. Virus
21. Water Snake
22.Emperor Penguin
23. Monarch
24. Bats
25. Box Turtle
26. Worm - by Gail McConnell
27. Giraffe
28. The Plains-Wanderer
29. Giant Anteater
30. Crested Porcupine
31. Black and White Warbler
32. Slimy Salamander
33. Gold Frog
34. Wallace's Flying Frog
35. Midwife Toad
36. Tasmanian Devil
37. On The Edge - Tamarins
38. Iguana - Rosemary McCleish
39. Old Buffalo - Rosemary McCleish
40. Samburu (Elephants) - Karen McCall
41. Howler Monkeys - Karen McCall
42. Grey Whales - Karen McCall
43. Raising Butterflies - Karen McCall
44. Fluffy (Pet Cat) Mark Woollett
45. Winter Turkeys
46. Earthworm
47. Pelicans
48. Common Grackle
49. Camels
50. Orange-Kneed Tarantula
51. Elf Owl
52. Centenarian Fruit Bat
53. Elephants
54. Fox Cubs
55. Raccoons
56. Snowy Owl
57. Horse
58. Pudu - Viv Macadam
59. Kangaroo by D.H.Lawrence
60. Snowshoe Hare
61. Fisher
62. Winter Weasel
63. Snake by DH Lawrence
64. Great Blue Heron
65. Victoria Crowned Pigeon
66. First Moose Sighting - Kate Thompson
67. Awakened by Turkeys - Kate Thompson
68. Brook's Gecko
69. Domesticated Cow (Irish) by Billy Collins
70. Crows
71. Stickleback
72. Nightingale
73. Swift
74. Baby Tortoise by D.H.Lawrence
75. Zebras
76. Zebras (2)
77. Rufus-tailed Jacamar
78. Dipper
79. Scarlet Macaw
80. Hermit Crab
81. Spider Monkey
82. Muskrat
83. Meerkat
84. Bats by Randall Jarrell
85. Dozing March Bears
86. Kingfisher
87. Babblers
88. The Moth by Walter de la Mare
89. Loon
90. The Snail by Walter de la Mare
91. A Robin by Walter de la Mare
92. Flying Dragon
93. Fox (1)
94. Python
95. Dik-Dik
96. Beaver
97. Cat's Gaze
98. Leech
99. Porcupine, early spring
100. Lion
101. Peepers
102. The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins
103. Hawk by Ted Hughes
104 Fish by Elizabeth Bishop
105. The Whales by D.H. Lawrence
106. The Oil Bird
107. Hornbill
108. Sun Birds
109. Blue Whale
110. Whimbrel
111. Olm
112.Sowerby''s Beaked Whale
113. Goldfinches
123. Northern Ghost Bat.
124. Puffin
125. Fireflies
126. Mountain Sheep
127. Climbing Mouse
128. Mountain Lion 129. Saw-whet Owl
130. Sandhill Crane
131. Anaconda
132. Condor
133. Locust
134. River Otters
135. Tree Frog (Costa Rica)
136.Toads
137.Tsetse Fly
138. Emperor Scorpion
139.Luna Moth
140. Stag Beetle
141. Demoiselles
142. Barred Owls Calling
143. Ruby Throated Hummingbird
144.AxolotlBlack Bear
Black bear grumbling along
Ancient trails through the woods
Denned tight all winter
2.
Yak
Yak wisdom says
Wander over high passes
Find the sweetest grass
3.
Cat
Fastidious cat!
Every exploration
A predator's move
4.
Musk Ox
Circle round the young:
Shelter them from wolves, weather,
Stand close, face winds, endure.
5.
Snow Leopard
Fabulous recluse:
Only the higher mountains
Offer space, sanctuary:
6.
Polar Bear
Find the breathing hole
Cover your nose. Be still. Wait.
When time expires, strike.
7.
Octopus
Don't even begin
To think you know anything:
My world is complex.
8.
Mosquito
Ah! The sweetest smell
Leads me to delicious blood
Under porous skin.
9.
Coyote
Alongside humans
My own business can flourish -
I map our shared world.
10.
Crocodile
On the river bank
You'd think I sleep forever -
Oh, just come closer !
11.
Tree Viper
I see infra red
I have a motion sensor
Beyond your feebleness
12.
Tree Frog
In my private sea
You observe my beating heart
My soul invisible
13.
Great Grey Owl
A tower of feathers
Silent watch in winter trees
Tundra spread below
14.
Chipmunk
Here and there there there
An endless race against death -
Dash back to safety.
15.
Grey Squirrel
They call us tree rats
But we lead parallel lives
In pure elegance
16.
Sea Otter
Lie back little one
Hold it tight between your paws
Crack it with a stone
17.
Bandicoot
Bandicoots at night
Are loners against the world
Grumpy little souls
18.
Lynx
I sacrifice grace
A little, to heft, a little
But stay predator
19.
Cat
Infinitesimal
Are the differences, the chasm
Between cat species
20.
Virus
My name is virus
I seek bacteria
To eat, multiply
Deep in the darkness
Endless tunnels of your blood
We billions unseen
21.
Water snake swimming, Bearcamp Pond, Tamworth
Undulating grace:
Its calligraphy describes
Fluid arcs of purpose
22.
Emperor Penguins
Hauled by instinct to account
Willed from the restless seas
Their paradise of grace
Trudging Inland
The journey blind, unerring
To this exact place
In darkness they stand
Cold and wind that freeze the spirit
New life balanced on their feet
Held in the savage clasp
Of two months starvation
They dream eternity
There’s no way out
Death’s suspended option
Premeditated
The eggs contain
The precious promise
That life conquers all
Even in night’s dominion
23.
Monarch (from the prose of Diane Ackerman)
Silent beautiful fragile
Harmless determined clean graceful
Ingenious chemists symbol of innocence
Like the imagination
They dart from one sunlit spot to another
Box Turtle
Plodding the millennia
Outlasting the forests
Its sun-driven blood
Patrols the inner labyrinth
Its safety itself
Each year a jaunty spring excursion
Ends in winter burial
26.
Worm
Burrowing in your allotted patch youmove through the dark, muscles contracting one by onein every part, lengthening and shorteningthe slick segmented tube of you, furrows in your wake.
Devising passages for water, air,
you plot the gaps that keep the structure from collapse.Dead things you know. Plants and creatures both.Your grooves shift matter, sifting as you go.
Eyeless, your appetite aerates.
Eating the world, you open it.
You ingest to differentiate.
Under the foot-stamped earth, you eat into a clot\of leaf mould, clay and mildew, and express what you canpart with, as self-possessed as when you started.
Your secretions bind the soil,
your shit enriches it. How things lienow will be undone, will reoccur. You, a surface-level archivist
sensing all there is
can be gone through. The body borne
within its plot.
Gail McConnell
27,
Giraffe
Once upon a time
In a land of trees and grass
They stood above the fray
And browsed the sky
Evolved to reach the highest
Became the long-necked giants
Silent slow motion
The towering legs carry them
From once upon to now
28.
The Plains-Wanderer
Unassuming, earthbound
On the cusp of flightlessness
I am overlooked
But here in the grass
Scratching for a bare living
I shine in glory
29.
Giant Anteater
For the world of ants
He is the unthinkable
Destroying angel
At his own scale
A comic, vulnerable
Grotesque niche-dweller
For himself, his ilk
His daily path before him
An artisan’s life
30.
Crested Porcupine
Rattling her stockade
Her slow obstinate saunter
Homebound, defiant
31.
Black-and-White Warbler
Among the brilliance
Of my cousins I am quiet,
A flow of shadows
My plumage the hatching
Of the slanting forest light
Cracking the silence
32.
Slimy Salamander
Breathing through its skin
It basks in watery air
In its dank, dark world
It surprises us:
Behaves above its image
Faithfully guards its egg
33.
Gold Frog
Worth its weight in gold:
Its life half-buried treasure
Living forest floor
A shielded sovereign:
No suit of armour, more a door
Seals its hiding place
34.
Wallace’s Flying Frog
Nature has performed
Some precise calculations:
Surface area to weight
Flippers for gliding
Making its own tadpole pond
Just another attribute
35.
Midwife Toad
My reward my genes
In a sticky string of eggs
Tied around my legs
Drag them to water
Heavy chains of fatherhood
Days and nights of love
36.
Tasmanian Devil
The devil we know
Has lost its wolf provider
Taken to hunting
Crunching carcasses
With massive jaws just a part
Of the whole story
Mummies have pouches
For months of baby safety
Half a year’s love milk
37.
On The Edge - The Tamarins, Emperor, and Golden Lion
Their long tails flowing
Parabolas their paths of air
Stitching earth to sky
In the sweeping world
The trees on the edge of death
As if immortal
Eye to eye and face
To face the tamarins meet
The aspect of eternity
38.
Iguana
When we retire, in a year or two, we’re going
to live on a smallholding in a warm climate -
New Zealand, or the south of France,
or it might have to be Essex - somewhere
drier than here, because of my arthritis,
out in the country but near a hospital,
with shops, a good library, easy access
to cultural venues, and we’ll grow our own
vegetables and get on with the neighbours,
eat breakfast and lunch and dinner
outside in the garden. Perhaps we’ll get
a boy in to help, if Richard’s knee gets
any worse. There’ll be no more depression
from me, no more illness, I’ll have been
going to the gym by then and have lost
a few stone and be able to move more easily.
And we are going to have two collie dogs
and two cats (we have the cats already)
and a parrot in another part of the house,
and an iguana.
That’s the only thing that worries me.
The iguana.
Do they get on with dogs and cats?
We’ll have a conservatory, I forgot that,
so perhaps the iguana could live in there.
No, the cats would always be in there,
because of the sun and the warmth.
Would we have to keep it in a cage?
Or would it roam freely through the house,
come slithering into bed unannounced,
in the middle of the night, as Smokey does,
and would it feel warm and cuddly,
or cold and scaly, and scrape my shins?
(I have to be careful of my shins.)
Or am I thinking of an armadillo?
And what do they eat? Would it eat
mice, dogfood, leaves? Would we keep
losing it as it darted behind wardrobes,
or would it live in the airing cupboard?
And if we went away, would a cat, dog,
and parrot sitter be prepared for an iguana?
Wouldn’t he draw the line at an iguana?
Shouldn’t I draw the line at an iguana?
Rosemary Mcleish
39.
Old Buffalo
Old Buffalo wakes up in the morning,
creaks to his arthritic knees, groans as he
lumbers to his feet, looks about him,
dopey with sleep, confused. Where is he?
Instead of the herd, he sees a long string
of something he doesn’t know how to
think about: horses, he knows them
from the past, and those strange creatures
which stand up on their hind legs and
make a lot of noise, he’s seen them before.
But what are those huge lumbering things,
moving head to tail across the prairie?
Time was, when his eyes were still good,
he could look across the world and all
he would see was food, mile upon mile
of delicious food, swaying in the breeze,
glinting in the sun. But now everything
is changing, he doesn't understand the
barren patches, and where is the herd?
There used to be buffalo everywhere,
eating, and when he was king, cows
for the taking, sons and battles and glory.
Now he sees the last of them, so few,
moving away in the distance, leaving him,
the sign that his time has come. Behind
his back in the night he’s been ousted.
He bellows and stamps but he’s tired,
he’s finished. They don’t look round.
He thinks he’ll go to the buffalo jump,
take the hero’s last leap, but on the way
death comes to meet him, in the guise of
a greedy little man on a pony with a rifle,
who has no use after all for the worthless hide,
the mangy hump, or the withered old balls.
Rosemary Mcleish
40.
Samburu (Elephants) by Karen McCall
Drinking chai tea
one night while camping in Kenya
I snap to attention
as roots groan,
bark shreds,
branches crack.
A small herd of elephants
pads softly near my tent,
tearing at trees
in search of food.
Adults rumble amiably and
snuffle up leaves.
A little one squeals.
I close my eyes
to fully savor the presence of this gentle sorority--
when the matriarch booms a thunderous growl
that jerks my rag-doll body
into the air.
Upon landing,
I rearrange my limbs
and regain my composure.
Nerves soothed,
drama complete.
Trusting, that the elephants trust me,
I fall asleep to the lullaby
of their, now quiet, feasting.
I rise with the sun
to a chorus of snoring and farting.
Next to my tent
five leathery mountains,
three adults two calves,
lie curled on their sides asleep.
The sixth elephant stands silently
guarding her family.
She must have seen or heard me
because the group floats to their feet in an instant.
And —
what a trick—
these giants vanish
like smoke.
All night long we had slept
next to each other
commingling breath,
dreaming of a new world built of grass and sky
where the Messiah is a mother.
Karen McCall
April 28, 2019
41.
Howler Monkeys - by Karen McCall
In darkness, before
sun swallows night,
male Howler monkeys rumble-roar from tropical tree tops.
Then quiet
covers the forest.
Quiet
quiet
quiet…
Until,
an alpha male
once more
thunder-growls his warning to all potential rivals—
constructing castle walls
with sound
42.
Gray Encounter (Gray Whales)
By Karen McCall
Sea spray
bearing the tang of kelp and crustaceans
stings my face in the early light
as we skim across the surface
of the lagoon.
I am watching gray whales
feast and frolic
in the kiwi-colored shallows
of Magdalena Bay
when a cow-calf pair approaches our skiff.
The younger whale, only weeks old,
dwarfs our small boat.
His smooth elastic skin,
fresh from the shelter of his mother’s womb,
is already buttoned with barnacles.
Next to our bow,
he lifts his rostrum
out of the water
in friendly greeting.
His curious eye looks directly into mine
inviting my touch.
Before I stretch my fingers over the gunnels
to caress that infant cheek
Before the baby whale closes his eye in pleasure
at my touch
Before we linger
together like this
for a long part of an hou
His mother dives below
our panga and
lifts our boat a few inches higher in the sea.
We rise on her back,
emerging like an island from the brine.
She calculates
and pauses,
before
gently
letting
us
go.
43.
Raising Butterflies
By Karen McCall
In the dry aquarium in my kitchen,
a caterpillar
convulses with the promise of wings.
Parsley and milkweed within glass walls
create a small Eden
where fat fleshy cylinders feast,
then bubble out of old, too-tight skins
sending Monarchs, Painted Ladies, Black Swallowtails
into a transformative sleep.
In their final disrobing,
Monarch larvae leave behind
translucent, jade-green jewels
suspended from branches upon which
they once flexed and fed.
Their chrysalids store
a viscous caterpillar soup
that will morph into patterned, papery wings
designed to soar across seas.
On this morning,
one chrysalis darkens and trembles in contractions.
Green skin tears away
as twitching antennae emerge,
probing the alien air.
I midwife these birth-soaked butterflies
outdoors to cure in the sun.
The heat lifts them in the sky--
a confetti of wings.
44.
Not all cats are exotic
And mysterious
Mine was a lover
Almost like a dog
He’d hang with the family
At the dinner table
Gliding under our feet
Banging on the wooden chair legs
And calling for more and more attention
Enormous cat - maybe 25 lbs?
And not fat one bit
Like a small wildcat
Both long and thick
Powerful, but friendly
Thick white and black fur
In vast swatches
But white all under
Top of the head black
Half a mustache
Under his nose
When I would cry
e would come to me
Matching my sobs
With his loud meows
Amazing whiskers
Jutting out all over
Tickling my face
When I would kiss him
Sunday afternoons
I’d watch sports
Lying on my belly
On our enormous pillow
In the center of the family room
And that big cat would watch too
Stately perched on my back
Front paws up at my neck
Claws digging into my sweatshirt
His soft torso and
Back legs down to my bottom
Like one of them big
Weighted blankets
But way better
And as the afternoon
Groaned along
The sports lulling me to sleep
We’d both be sacked out
Me snoring loudly
The cat purr buzzing along
Intermittently
Squeezing his eyes shut
Again and again
Winter Turkeys
Gawky, overgrown
They have many hidden depths
Subtle in plumage
Circadian rhythms,
Patterns known only to them
Surviving the woods
They come twice a day
Scratch around diligently,
Depart without fuss
Pelicans - The Brown and the Great White
Quirky bag of tricks
Flapping high above the waves
Plummeting for fish
Her weighty cousin
The powerful stately Great White
Whale-like filters, scoops,
In crescent flotillas;
The Brown team suns on the rocks,
Makes occasional sweeps.
48.
Common Grackle (Written on St. Valentine’s Day)
Symphony of purples
Subtly shading into black:
Such elegant tones
Pure understatement!
Their calls and behaviour
Are far less subdued.
Does that rich plumage,
A semiotics feast of code
Liven grackle hearts ?
49.
Camels
(They say a camel’s
A horse designed by a committee
But I might say a horse
Is a camel designed by the same group
Who forgot to factor in the slow internal release of water)
(In the Bestiary)
Where do camels belong?
By the millions with us
Lords of arid places
Plodders and racers -
We’ve made them ships, race-horses
Beauties in our eyes
Too easy answers:
Water in those humps?
They spit in our eyes!
Centuries of trade routes
Caravans of precious goods
Most precious: culture
All in an eyeblink
Compared with that long epoch
Of perfect wildness,
The trials and errors
Stochastic percentages
Of changing climate
The savage seasons
Probed, tested blood and sinew
Left the wind-picked bones
Way out in the Gobi
The Bactrian survivors
No wild Dromedaries
Delicate cousins
On cold Andean slopes
Skittishly survive
Yet into the dry
Of the endless interior
Of Australia
Camels have escaped
Planted their wild imprint far
From human control
50.
Orange-kneed Tarantula
For him, adventure
Quests across the forest floor
A male stereotype
For her a cavern
Filled by her startling beauty:
She sits, guards, waits
The species evolved
Over untold millennia -
Hail, Costa Rica!
Glory of the clouds!
The deep time of the forest
Stirred by coming change
Parliaments of elfs
Would be Ruritanian -
Almost unnoticed
But the meek inherit
Playing dead is survival
And if they look back
Blood pools in the brain:
They have such small bird tricks
To keep them going
“Dignity” might be
A better noun - a “Dignity”
Of tiny, perfect owls
53.
Elephants
Last of the great herds
The ultimate gardeners
Till with massive feet
54.
Fox Cubs
Playing in the dawn
Rehearsing the greater game
Of life, struggle, death.
55.
Racoons
Racoons parading
Clever young in line behind
Deft hands, eager brains
56.
Snowy Owl
Winter storm of life
Fiery guardian of her eggs
Sits still as death
HORSE
When we think of the animals which have been widely domesticated, some of these species still exist but are often rare in the wild, while others have been radically changed through human contact. It is not surprising that there are many more poems and other writings about dogs, cats and horses than about other species, especially if domestication has led to animals becoming pets as well as working alongside their humans.
This is especially true for a handful of creatures who have maintained various roles in human service. Horses have lost many of their functions to machinery and become recreational pets, but they are still used as transport, herding and pack animals in parts of the world , and they were still part of warfare until the mid-twentieth century. Poetry to honor the horse is therefore rich and plentiful, from ancient times until now. As one would expect, this section needs to be large and diverse, and in our format it certainly does not need to be limited.
Shakespeqre's "Henry V" is his most evocative lines on the warhorse. In the famous prologue the horse has to be summoned by the imagination:
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
Later, before the climactic battle between the English and the French, the Dauphin's lines seem to me to be the ultimate testosterone-fueled tribute of the mounted warrior:
DAUPHIN
What a long night is this! I will not change my
horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.
Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his
entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus,
chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I
soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth
sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his
hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
ORLEANS
He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
DAUPHIN
And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for
Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull
elements of earth and water never appear in him, but
only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts
him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you
may call beasts.
Constable
Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
DAUPHIN
It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.
ORLEANS
No more, cousin.
DAUPHIN
Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the
rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary
deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as
fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent
tongues, and my horse is argument for them all:
'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for
a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the
world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart
their particular functions and wonder at him. I
once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:
'Wonder of nature,'--
He has shaped man’s world
Ambition’s throne of power
Made hunters fly, made empires
The noblest of all
The patient giant pulling the plough
Sustains us, harvest to harvest
The echo of his unmistaken gait
In hollow dawn streets
Cold stone and brick
Milkman’s clinking bottles
Proudly astride him
The loping marathoner
Halfway to the sky
Can you hear them
Jostling on the horizon
A distant rumble?
Dark Horses
Bearing the cloaked four
More stamina than chargers
Swifter than the wind
Bucephalus
Nicknamed Bucephalus
Cowhead carried Alexander
Through all his battles
From the teenage king
To the wounded demigod
Who just outlived him
Piers the Ploughman
Piers the Ploughman
Knew eternity each day
Kept his furrows straight
His nameless draft horse
Knew the rhythm of his days
A parallel soul
58. PUDÚ
In the shimmering heat she thought she saw
A man leading a baby goat on a string.
On approaching him she gasped.
The tiny forest deer
Panted and puffed feverishly
In the scalding heat beside the road
His little cloven hooves on fire
The two sharp horns bowed
Eyes the colour of honey
That once glowed in the cool recesses of the forest
Now opaque, dying embers.
She brought him home, tended to him.
He died hours later, far from his green home.
Heartbroken, she carved his image.
It became the emblem of his forest
That had just, unlike him, been saved.
Cañi Sanctuary, Pucon, AraucanÃa, Chile
Viv Macadam
59.
Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plump-weighted,
And lifting her beautiful slender face, oh! so much more
gently and finely lined than a rabbit's, or than a hare's,
Lifting her face to nibble at a round white peppermint drop
which she loves, sensitive mother Kangaroo.
Her sensitive, long, pure-bred face.
Her full antipodal eyes, so dark,
So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many
empty dawns in silent Australia.
Her little loose hands, and drooping Victorian shoulders.
And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly,
With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and
straggle of a long thin ear, like ribbon,
Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin
little dangle of an immature paw, and one thin ear.
Her belly, her big haunches
And, in addition, the great muscular python-stretch of her tail.
There, she shan't have any more peppermint drops.
So she wistfully, sensitively sniffs the air, and then turns,
goes off in slow sad leaps
On the long flat skis of her legs,
Steered and propelled by that steel-strong snake of a tail.
Stops again, half turns, inquisitive to look back.
While something stirs quickly in her belly, and a lean little
face comes out, as from a window,
Peaked and a bit dismayed,
Only to disappear again quickly away from the sight of the
world, to snuggle down in the warmth,
Leaving the trail of a different paw hanging out.
Still she watches with eternal, cocked wistfulness!
How full her eyes are, like the full, fathomless, shining
eyes of an Australian black-boy
Who has been lost so many centuries on the margins of
existence!
She watches with insatiable wistfulness.
Untold centuries of watching for something to come,
For a new signal from life, in that silent lost land of the
South.
Where nothing bites but insects and snakes and the sun,
small life.
Where no bull roared, no cow ever lowed, no stag cried,
no leopard screeched, no lion coughed, no dog barked,
But all was silent save for parrots occasionally, in the
haunted blue bush.
Wistfully watching, with wonderful liquid eyes.
And all her weight, all her blood, dropping sackwise down
towards the earth's centre,
And the live little-one taking in its paw at the door of her
belly.
D.H.Lawrence
60.
Snowshoe Hare
Brilliant fresh snow:
Its unmistakable tracks
Record a mission
The carriage of fur,
Blood, bone, sinew, brain, teeth, heart:
Purpose, survival
A beast of tactics
Thousands of testing winters
Close run into spring
Fisher
The end of the line
True essence of predator
Red in tooth and claw
Just about its business.
Give it a respectful space
To be a fisher in
62.
Snake
Great Blue Heron
Patient on her rock
Tranced by daylight: the still world’s
Essence beak and fish
At dusk she takes off
Bony scaffolding swept back:
Mournful majesty
Victoria Crowned Pigeon
Victoria Crowned PIgeons:
What delicate plumage -
And complex courtship -
There are bare bones
Somewhere underneath the show
But now is not the time to search for them.
He dances; She spreads
Her wings, raises them high, runs
Around him, legs slightly bent,
Uttering short hissing noises.
What a lot of fuss -
Let’s hope he’s worth it !
But who are we to laugh?
Do we understand? Really?
Passing strange the languages of love!
The Victoria Crowned Pigeons
As they unravel the mysteries of purpose
Deep in a forest designed for them to keep a low profile
(Or who designed what - after all those millennia who can tell?)
Will produce a single egg
And both will guard it with their dancing lives
And after a time of high exertion, privation and danger
The little darling will emerge.
66. First Moose Sighting - Kate Thompson
First Moose Sighting, Mac Hill, c. 1978
Skiing with friends one still February afternoon,
upland beechwood slides into tapestry: two sudden,
mythical profiles - soundless, long-legged, mossy gray
on gray, they graze on yellowed leaves - then, gently
as first flakes of snow, shuttle off through the trees
and are gone, back into the weave of winter.
67.
Awakened by Turkeys - Kate Thompson
‘Cross the lawn, clad in sleek brown and black,
Stepping, pecking, this morning they’re back:
Twelve ladies, one gent
In sedate regiment,
Soft remarking “Gob-gobbledy clack.”
Brook’s Gecko
Geckos I have known:
Geniuses of solar power,
Vertical surfaces:
Brick, stone, glass, whitewash
Fastest at midday, by dusk
In shadow, cracks, holes
Eating, surviving
Quick sprints of taste, risk, danger
Long slow pause trances
by Billy Collins
across the road from where we lived,
stepping all day from tuft to tuft,
their big heads down in the soft grass,
though I would sometimes pass a window
and look out to see the field suddenly empty
as if they had taken wing, flown off to another country.
and again the field would be full of their munching
or they would be lying down
on the black-and-white maps of their sides,
facing in all directions, waiting for rain.
How mysterious, how patient and dumbfounded
they appear in the long quiet of the afternoon.
would let out a sound so phenomenal
that I would put down the paper
or the knife I was cutting an apple with
and walk across the road to the stone wall
to see which one of them was being torched
or pierced through the side with a long spear.
the noisy one, anchored there on all fours,
her neck outstretched, her bellowing head
laboring upward as she gave voice
to the rising, full-bodied cry
that began in the darkness of her belly
and echoed up through her bowed ribs into her gaping mouth.
the large, unadulterated cowness of herself,
pouring out the ancient apologia of her kind
to all the green fields and the gray clouds,
to the limestone hills and the inlet of the blue bay,
while she regarded my head and shoulders
70.
Crows
It seems impossible:
So small a brain encompasses
Such great intelligence
But what do we know?
I know that when I walk out
Sharp eyes also scan
The landscape, comprehend
WithIn a different frame,
Their alien reference:
I, reading their sky
See nothing on their canvas,
Their jostling model.
I can’t read the map.
They circle from their tree.
Their landmark centre
Fly out to beat the bounds
Stake out their resolutions,
Weave new patterns,
A world envisaged,
Networked by their matrixed quest
New pathways in the mind.
They caw their logic
Chorusing the land’s dark soul
Telling its story -
But maybe simple joy
Shatters tight confining bonds,
Proclaims its mindless passion !
71.
Stickleback
A male role model!
(Too much information to put into haiku form!)
He builds a house -
Guess where the glue comes from, chaps?
His own body, of course, where else?
Ladies (plural) visit and lay their eggs,
And off they swim - don’t ask.
He fertilizes the eggs -
I hope that gives him a little ?pleasure ?satisfaction?
Then it’s just work work work,
Guard the house, see off predators
And the delicate duty not mentioned in the manual -
Fan the eggs so that they stay aerated -
Did he know that as a boy,
That that presumably 24/7 chore was in the job description?
The eggs need the care for three weeks,
I hazard that’s a long time in stickleback sticklerdom -
Then what? Is he done? Are there blissfully irresponsible grandfathers
Hanging out with the young?
I think not.
So spare a thought for the stickleback,
Anthropomorphised or not -
It’s worked for thousands of years -
Though I doubt there’s much of a thank you.
So how did it all evolve - this shining example of fairness,
The males stepping up, doing more of a job?
His tummy goes red in the process,
Is that a reward, or just a sign that he’s open for business?
This all happens in a very small, very complicated world.
72.
Nightingale
Noone seems to care
What a nightingale looks like -
Sturdy, solitary
Skulks in undergrowth
Dull brown and cream, nothing much
For humans to admire -
But ah! what sweet song
From dawn to dusk, and onward
To midnight and beyond!
A superstar, no less!
The voice of sleepless lovers
Lighting up the night!
73.
Swifts
Baby Tortoise by D.H.Lawrence
Zebras
Grevy’s outdazzles
The galloping winking stripes
Spooking leonine eyes
(Grevy’s zebra is a bigger, stripier version of the Common Zebra)
76.
Zebras (2)
So what’s in zebras
That stays stubborn, forever wild?
Why untamable?
Can this be random,
A tangle in the DNA?
Or is this culture,
Behaviour transmitted?
A restlessness of spirit
The zebra air breathed?
77.
Rufus-tailed Jacamar
From snatching insects
Out of clean air, Jacamars
Alight, dig tunnels:
She leads, for breeding,
Shares the sitting, he by day
She through the long night
78.
Dipper
To walk a streambed
Takes particular talent
In a diving bird
The large rocky nest
With a dome and side entrance:
Dippers live in style !
79.
In Costa Rica
Hermit Crabs
On the beach at dusk
Along the tideline debris
Hermit crabs parade
Good housing is scarce
And needs changing frequently:
All is visible,
Finding critical:
Unlikely shells are scrambled
Barely squeezed in
Survival depends
On the possibility -
Comfort secondary
When the tide returns
The parade ends in triumph
But what of the homeless?
Spider Monkey
Muskrat
Faced with challenges
Their solutions similar
To those of beavers
With less landscaping
The muskrats find their niches
Enjoy discreetly
"Bats" by Randall Jarrell
(published 1964)
A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
and catches him. He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting--
Her baby hangs on underneath.
All night, in happiness, she hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night, and echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is, how big it is,
Which way it's going:
She lives by hearing.
The mother eats the moths and gnats she catches
In full flight; in full flight
The mother drinks the water of the pond
She skims across. Her baby hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the milk she makes him
In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air.
Their single shadow, printed on the moon
Or fluttering across the stars,
Whirls on all night; at daybreak
The tired mother flaps home to her rafter.
The others all are there.
They hang themselves up by their toes,
They wrap themselves in their brown wings.
Bunched upside-down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping
Babblers
Loud advertising:
Risky yet still comforting
For the feeding flock
Dense vegetation
Demands careful compromise:
Safety in numbers
Over millennia
The noise has worked well enough
For workaday birds
The Moth
Musked with the dark's faint bloom,
Out into glooming and secret haunts
The flame cries, 'Come!'
Lovely in dye and fan,
A-tremble in shimmering grace,
A moth from her winter swoon
Uplifts her face:
Stares from her glamorous eyes;
Wafts her on plumes like mist;
In ecstasy swirls and sways
To her strange tryst.
Loon
Spirit of two worlds:
When the lakes freeze, the ocean
The Great Northern Diver
One of many seabirds
On the margins with the raven
Among the raucous gulls, the ducks,
Herons, the fishers, scavengers
Gliding in the plane above the waves
Diving into the salty riches
In summer monarch of the ponds
The handsome liveried possessor
The splendid estate, the untidy nest
Precious chicks to teach and bear upon one’s back
Just once I met him under water
Flying powerfully in the chase
Oblivious of the clumsy human
And day and night the haunting call,
The cries of contact and alarm
The wild calling itself
Mourning for the centuries of survival
The thrilling notes across the water
The bubbling spring of resurrection
The echoes of past ages
The slow pulse of the land
Strong wingbeat of the seasons
The spreading circles of the rippling years
Fading, fading to the edge
All wings are flown
Flying Dragon
Evolving glory:
Ribs and skin, slow distortion:
Lizard to dragon
Still descends to earth
Buries rare draconian eggs
Reassumes the sky
93.
Fox (1)
Foxes have colonized London spectacularly in recent times, and for many city people they are the major wildlife presence. For people in England seven hundred years ago the wild was a close and surrounding reality. The poet of the great 14th. century poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was someone who knew his animals and the world of hunting very well. Here is the description of the beginning of a hunt.The translation into modern English does not carry all the specialized vocabulary of the original, but gives us a brief glimpse of wily Renard, and I recommend a complete reading of the story, which also has embedded vivid deer and a memorably fierce wild boar - More on the fox in later posts - Richard
'"Twas a fair frosty morning, for the sun rose red in ruddy vapour, and the welkin was clear of clouds. The hunters scattered them by a forest side, and the rocks rang again with the blast of their horns. Some came on the scent of a fox, and a hound gave tongue; the huntsmen shouted, and the pack followed in a crowd on the trail. The fox ran before them, and when they saw him they pursued him with noise and much shouting, and he wound and turned through many a thick grove, often cowering and hearkening in a hedge. At last by a little ditch he leapt out of a spinney, stole away slily by a copse path, and so out of the wood and away from the hounds. But he went, ere he wist, to a chosen tryst, and three started forth on him at once, so he must needs double back, and betake him to the wood again.
Then was it joyful to hearken to the hounds; when all the pack had met together and had sight of their game they made as loud a din as if all the lofty cliffs had fallen clattering together. The huntsmen shouted and threatened, and followed close upon him so that he might scarce escape, but Reynard was wily, and he turned and doubled upon them, and led the lord and his men over the hills, now on the slopes, now in the vales, while the knight at home slept through the cold morning beneath his costly curtains.-"
94.
PYTHON
Swaggering prince
Giant among snakes.
They say python has no house.
I heard it a long time ago
And I laughed and laughed and laughed.
For who owns the ground under the lemon grass?
Who owns the ground under the elephant grass?
Who owns the swamp - father of rivers?
Who owns the stagnant pool - father of waters?
Because they never walk hand in hand
People say that snakes only walk singly.
But just imagine
Suppose the viper walks in front
The green mamba follows
And the python creeps rumbling behind -
Who will be brave enough
To wait for them?
Yoruba Poem (Author not identified)
95.
Dik-Dik
Beaver
Up and down ladders
Of western ponds, mountain streams
Many generations
Have wrought the landscape
Into managed farms, of decades
In wild rotation
Strength from head to tail
Teeth to bring down mighty trees
Tails to power water
Swim or sound alarm
A strong frame for winter sleep
Dive through frigid water
To the dry platform
The dark dreams of milky warmth
Security from work
Instinctual, a world reshaped
The ultimate artisans
Unconscious artists
Cat’s Gaze
The cat's steady gaze
Unwavering for threats, prey, jumps -
A commanding view
98.
Porcupine, early spring
Every afternoon
Impenetrable of purpose
He crosses our field
Slow and steady gait
Impervious to every movement,
Threat or encounter
For him the world comes
Unfolding at his approach -
Not keen on surprise
100
Lion
Twenty hours a day
To bask in magnificence
Seems appropriate-
Woe betide the rest
Of all those other mammals
When hunger spurs on!
It transpires of course
The females do the serious work
The males are mostly show
But oh the decline
The sad, inevitable
Onset of old age!
The king's a shadow -
When tomorrow dawns, the Pride
Has gone - Long Live the King!
101, Peepers
Peepers
There's risk in this bravado
You are after all just a snack
A titchy Hell's Angel riding your decibels
By the swamp the wrong side of the tracks
Why sing in trios,
The aim to turn up the volume
And solo become top frog?
If you make it, the biggest and brassiest
Impressing that She-All-That-Counts
If it's your eggs get laid in the water
Ultimate excitement mounts!
The moment to regain your poise
No more strutting your noise
A generation lies there waiting to be born -
And you, you little piece of neat machismo
You can lay down your horn.
102.
The Windhover
Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1844-1889
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. --
(The name is an old one for the Kestrel)
103.
