Edgar
takes an allotment
twitch, dock and neighbouring nettle,
ground elder that Romans brought for salad.
I will pick each snip of broken root
for from neglect more vexation grows.
I'll light a fire that signals my intent,
smoulders with the efforts of my weeding,
comforts as I crouch on aching thighs
picking among unruly soil.
I have a palisade of corrugated iron
and stakes, know my estate's dimensions
as neighbours know theirs. My shed
is where I will prepare for proper husbandry,
the planting of sound stock
that will reward with crops
of known provenance.
Cinders, soot, my vigilance
will deter marauders that would infect
the core of all that's good.
Edgar by the Gelt
It's wild today,
thrashes into groins that
turn its dissent
downstream, avoid
direct assault.
Boulders grumble beneath
the breakers, white water
where once he soaked,
still, in the marrow cold
of summer night.
It troubles him this flux
of moods, watching.
His fingers green
with slime on ash.
Fungi burst through
the bark of fallen birch.
No chance of settling,
for nothing lasts
yet all's the same.
The squirrel is alert
to simple duties
and its necessary play.
I should be happy,
he thinks, for
this is a commonwealth
where I have a part,
can watch and maunder,
be particular at will.
The politics of buzzard,
goldcrest, salmon, vole,
will not ensnare me.
Why should he think to
tear her from her father's arms
who looks in vain for mist
on looking-glass?
How pluck her from that
happy prison where
they would have laughed at
lesser beings gad
round fortune's hooves
like angry clegs? Does he think
we suffer less when
happiness contrives
to dull our senses to the
tempest in our hearts?
Ninny! Does he suppose I'll
settle for
a salvaged fate, pretend I
never was
on that heath, Poor Tom,
was never called by Frateretto
or saw my father blinded
by blind judgement's storm?
I'll not accept the solace
of a truth
ignored, for then would
Edgar be abused,
his marriage bed be racked
with barbs and blisters,
his coupling demented with
the cries of bride
and groom for their gross
betrayal.
I'll have none of it.
Instead I'll clip the box
tend lavender, bruise the
thyme on broken paths,
watch the heron, do such
unrelated
things that never will amount
to much,
that never will feed an ending to the fatuous crowd.