What the animals said

Poem by Alison Leonard

Ashamed of cars and war, I went to the place of earth
and sat under a ring of damson trees, and asked the damson stone
to call the animals round. It took its time, took my hand
to feel the twisted trunks, brittle twigs, the age-long infancy
of damson, its untouched tartness, its far distance from jam.

Then, as I’d asked, it called the animals round: the old British ones,
the squirrel, mole, dormouse and hedgehog with their sleep disturbed,
the rat, stoat, hare alert and quivering, and with some awareness
of its leadership, the fox. The fox owns this place, mates here,
rears its young here, slaughters souls for food, is like a fox here.

Abashed and, for a short while, wanting to listen to these voices,
I asked them what they had to say to me. They paused, and I wondered
which would choose to speak, on whose behalf. Eventually
they spoke with a single voice, and with no hesitation. They said,
‘We love you. You are one of us, a part of what we are a part of.’
Ashamed as I was of cars, war, the diminishment that my kind
had dealt to their kind, I was glad. I continued to listen to them.
There was silence again. Then: ‘And we are afraid of you.’

This was not unexpected. I heard their sentiments reverberating
beneath the branches of the damson trees, and felt a confirmation
of my shame. But there was more. Unwilling now, I had to listen more,

and they offered words I had not expected: ‘What burdens you bear.’
A car was passing in the distance. I felt its oil, where that came from,
the metal case, plastic (oil again), ignition spark, chrome, lead,
speed and need from round the world. They said, ‘What burdens.
You can do nothing, move not a muscle, without first going three times
round the world. Your food travels even farther than you do.
You spend so little time with your children.’
I felt them, those burdens on my back. I thought they’d break me.

The circle dissolved. I sat again on my chair that came from oil,
the early morning traffic loud and louder. I rubbed my eyes, my face,
my living skin. ‘You are one of us, a part of what we are a part of.
We have seen the burdens that you bear.’ A waning moon hung
in the south, parting the clouds for a moment, then disappeared.

---

Comments

Please login to add a comment