Wildlings



Starlings pour from a tree, noisy as a waterfall.
As I walk I heat up: flinching eyes in the brightness of sun.
Here by the old barn, something blooms red in the ivy: a robin, not a flower. It blooms and flies from the open field, into the wide calm sky.
We amble on, over the gate, over the grassy bumps of lane.
In the shadowed woods there is old bones and there is fresh; splayed with wing feathers, a blooded fan.
Cold holds on the low path. As I climb I heat up: clumsy as a troll in the bracken and sticks. Look at these caves and holes and kicked down trees: badgers here are big as people.










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