Hedgehog Rites

Poem about the relationship of creatures to humans and God.

 

 

 

Thick with sleep in our night-coded

plots of land, we dream of the easy back roads

gotten clean across in our hey days.

 

Nobody dozes out there now, those tracks

are sealed. Convoys of trucks, our blighting enemy,

burn blunt soft noses with diesel napalm.

 

It is said, we’re on the way out. Dead

by tomorrow, that God’s great leaps forward

have never included nudgers and fumblers.

 

Yet still I pledge my snout to snort up the enemy.

To test the stink of tires for close relations

snuffed out in the morning’s cruel fuel- fires.

 

 

We usually say: Best not go there. Then

we say those bells and lights never strike twice.

But that hellish highway is a graveyard of proverbs

 

And we have rites of respect to cross ourselves with,

to bring us out, one after one, to scent our road kill.

Our noises you hear from the edge of the Universe.

 

See, those whisperings are ours, those stars

Were for us, let us say, long before your inventions,

 

 

He’s chatting with us. We’re aware we’re

taken in, in the end, by that old earth-shaking

grumbler who put us here, and you there.

 

 

Reviews

[Ron]

Yes yes PP I do like this type of acutely observational poem. Also I see older humans suffering similarly as modern life rushes pell mell over them. The lyrics have a whistful echo as though being issued from a quiet, considered vault inside the brain. I liked version 1 too.

Thanks for the review of my poem. I am sorry you chose it. I have this horror streak in me that is unrestrainable at times. I think its wounding from 30 years as a detective in London. Look at some of the others. Sign up as my friend.
Most important more writing please. And more!

[Kathryn]

This piece is really spectacular! Moving, creative, sincere, powerful. It has a lot of weight and wisdom in it. Your diction is great; I had to read carefully and it was nice to be "told to slow down." Great write!

I don't know if you meant to repeat it that many times, but the idea of chanting this over and over again is really rich.