IN BADGER’S WOOD

Whose woods these are, I think I know;

They belong to my friends, Coco and Joe.

What if there were no fear, or loss,

but hawthorn berry, instead?

What if I could tell

hazel and maple apart,

not because one had more beauty -

there are rosehips, don’t forget,

and Vibernum Opulis

and crushed, scented pine.

Some catkins are soft green 

caterpillars, plush with rain.

I learn a new story now

and again - like how rosemary 

got her name - Rose Marinus -

‘dew of the sea’.

Everything ages. The cork

of the field maple marries moss,

and somewhere in the low bramble,

wild strawberries; 

deeper still, the badger sett,

a whole world underneath.

And high above, birds calling.

‘Where do birds go when they die?’

Joe asks. ‘Why don’t they fall 

in great heaps from the sky?’

Perhaps Merlin knew. Or Arthur, 

when he was a boy, not exiled king.

What if we could go home?

What if we were found, instead?

Poets Open Link Night at dversepoets…