Grimbeau

Winter’s been a long trudge, gummed in mud, bogged down

in deep, awkward ruts, dense and dark forest,

lost and alone, despairing, plenty drunk,

ill with dysentery in sight of home on

a hill fort moat full by water, like Ely without eels,

Hereward the Wake, and Roman quislings.

Bare, blue bummed witches hurl abuse from towers

in the rushed bogland, but no heed is paid.

Their order is clear, give up and get out.

But No! We squit and squat, lugubriate

in stinking mud, rotting leaf and twig, leaf mulch

and loam. My friends are toads in the thicket,

Yellow, shocking pink, emerald, amber

eyes blink calm, slow, gaze fixed on prey prone,

incapable of flight, that they shall despatch

with a quick, languid, silent lashing tongue flick.

Big bugs like us are too much like hard work

we wait on longer days and higher tides

With grace, a measure of luck, we will be

in soft, juicy, new architecture then.

Warm under kind sun through larch leaf, eyebeams

and sunbeams, drogues of sorts, hold this fast

floating canopy secure, and we watch

sycamore helicopters gliding past