Village Life – 21st Century

Our lawn is not big its slopes to the field where two wild horses run;
its surrounded by trees and the bindweed just grows;
but today the majestic and cocky and lone
pheasant decided to call it his home;
he strutted and looked and then strutted some more
then caught sight of himself in a mirror
what’s more he decided that the fellow
looking out at the world
was an arrogant cove as he didn’t retreat
he just copied whatever he did in a way
that is both annoying and threatening to say
that he wasn’t at all in awe of a rival
but to rid his new place of this interloper
meant survival;
around and around did the first pheasant go
then came back to look and there he was even so
he decided to leave and go back to the lawn
where he found bits of food in this cold light of morn;
this February frost was no good for his searching
but the little he found was all right for now,
it was warm and ’twas sheltered so that was a bonus
and no resident feline to give him a scare;
he thought with what little brain was in motion
that this was a good place to wait for the spring.

ii

Bright February sun, still weak from winter, does its best to warm the road, damp from melting frost.

Bare trees stark against the pale morning sky hold within them the power to entrance and bring joy when finally they let forth their blossom and nascent leaves, tender and so beautifully green, a feast to the eye.

Early dustmen drag wheelie bins across the tarmac of the road, clearing away our debris, what civilisation!

Neatly we dispose then go to buy more plastic wrapped carrots for our own convenience – then latterly we are brought up with a shock as we see on the news endless aquatic acres of plastic in the pure blue white of the antarctic, bombarded as we are with pictures of sea turtles mistaking floating plastic bags for jellyfish, dying whales with guts full of plastic pebbles, responsibility burns in on me as I sit and contemplate spring.

Newly acquired pheasant on the lawn still struts his stuff safe in the knowledge of a protected space.

Are we like the pheasant – complacently living in our own wall of comfort and safety that we are daily blind to how we use the earth – all sceptered isles set in dazzling seas surrounded by murderous miles of floating debris?

Let the activists’ voices ring in our ears and bombard us daily with unpalatable pictures and beat us regularly about our conscience until we all see that we are capable of being other than we are.

DennyBradbury© All good wishes for plastic free oceans and a peaceful world.