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{natural facts} david caddy 1 Gypsy kids skin stags leaving guts outside Frampton House for all to see. Poaching pools clutch knives slit throats make a heap of heads, telling Taylor he can stuff his shoot. Animal rescue workers fight like ferrets in a bag, occupying a quaint urban quarter. When a man knew horseshit from sprays could count lapwings, was paid in pence. When a man knew bend from hack, near from far, grist from grizzle, it was all subterranean, somehow so hidden and unsaid like a kettle with a silent whistle. A concentration, a deepening of the gaze. 2 At home we came to speech late sometimes not at all. Fear of sky, those higher, bound us to village, the call. Following trails across Three Corners a stillness clings to boundary. How the template can break, be lived as something else. We ate incessantly, like broilers, storing for those times that might come that might steal us from mother. We ate in silence. Instead of emotion, pigs and dogs one knew and fed. In the face of thought, undug plots, grass to be cut, the lure of light. An absence of fruit, reading matter. |
