Ducking beneath the covers of dusk
I am Badger.
I eat, nourished from Earth.
In turn I deposit my dues on the land
and it becomes the pulsing life of Tree.

Massive and old I stand,
growing imperceptibly
I am Beech.
I have stood here since before the fence went up.
I reach over it, root under it
An arm has crossed your border
But your guards have yet to notice
You own the land I root in?

My arm is longer than your short life.

You own the boughs I roost in?
I see all.
Riddles and hypocrisies.
I am Raven.
I wet my beak in River,
in the curled leaf of fern,
in blood.
Strut where I like and croak the evening in.
I know nothing of fence and hedge, laws and courts.

Slight and sharp, I move with feral grace.
I am Weasel.
I hunt what I can, pad-footed and stealth.
What cunning does it take to kill a caged animal?
Or shoot Deer, sniper-like with a silenced rifle?
Does that make you more man than beast?

Low belly ground-slinker
I am Adder.
I tongue-tickle my lover’s back
as he slips between the rocks.
Earth tremors – you are coming.
I am gone before you knew I was there.

You own this land you are blindly quaking?
And all upon it?
Pay attention!

******
I bend to drink from streams,
but I fear what poisons trickle there now.
I am Woman.
I pick mushrooms, snatch a pheasant, tickle trout.

‘You do not have a licence! You will face the law!’

No!
I face the sun!
And the moon at night.

I wander, following the tracks of Badger,
the call of Raven.
Get snagged by talons of barbed wire,
so common a sight we have tamely forgotten to notice
that the land is criss-crossed war-like
with the promise of violence,
the ripping of flesh.

I dream of making my home in the woods
Like Fox, or Weasel,
happy in her den dug from earth.
But with these two legs, no chance.
‘You must buy the land!’
Wage labour then.
‘You cannot build your two-legged house here!’
Occupy the concrete jungle, not the rooted one.
We scatterlings, left to roam the concrete heath.

But I am no trespasser on this Earth, our Mother.
My ears are pricked, my eyes are keen.
My sharp nose smells bullshit from furlongs away.
I do not own anything
I am merely trying to belong here.

I too, like Raven and Badger, need to rove and sleep,
like Adder, my love affairs must be embedded here, on this loamy ground.
So with a flick of my ears,
a flash of my tail,
I delight in assuring you
that neither you nor your ancestors
have ever stopped me shitting in the woods.
Yes, even your private woods.

The trees shall continue to be nourished
long after you and your title deeds are gone.
For life is always striving to be lived,
And we’ve been doing this for a very long time.

~Heather Jane 2018