Bog Myrtle & Peat

In response to a recent post about rats, the following poem was left as a comment by John Fortune, who blended my words and those of my friend Audrey Campbell to make something new and fine which deserves a post of its own – thanks John…

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We’re yet to imagine

The perfect death for a rat;

Destruction so crushing and final

That we’ll never have to kill another.

Reaching for that ideal, we bide our time

And smash them with shovels, clash them with traps,

Set dogs upon them and see their bowels fly.

I don’t pity rats

But there are nights

I go to the sheds and feel

The stirring proximity of an enemy,

Fair and square.

Sometimes it makes sense

To have them here;

Bitter and wise, roiling in the midnight sty.

In one quiet moment,

When the moon was full

And the yard hurled

With a burr of silver light,

I saw one rat leading another

With eyes like those of a boiled trout,

White and sightless. I confess

I let them pass

Unscathed.