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
Grimbeau 