The Herd

At our writing class we have been thinking about voice - the voice of characters, the voice we use - this poem came from an exercise set as homework.  It is an interesting process for me to start from a 'given' idea rather than something that has sprung from deeper within.  It took me a while to find a voice and to find what I wanted to say using it....

You may not  know it

but we watch you

in your muddled lives.

We see how you walk,

stalking

on hind legs.

Impressive –

if impractical.

It can’t be easy,

but with those greasy

free hands

what damage you do;

always scrabbling at things –

somehow

always drawing blood.

And your noise –

so shrill and pipey.

But what do you do?

We never see you eat –

How’s that?

Do you not eat

or drink, to quench a summer thirst,

or shit,

or flag the flies away,

or scratch your rumps?

You just slope up to the gate

mooing,

yahooing,

then flay

a bunch of plucked grass

in your mangling hand,

beating it against the bars.

A gift?

No.

You make a weapon of fodder.

We won’t touch it

and you get bored.

We will only watch you

from this safe

distance –

so you go.

No,

we will not approach

those whom we cannot trust.

No.

We cannot trust those

with no mud between their toes.

You cannot know the depths of life

without owning that simplest of pleasures,

or the singular taste of a fresh

growth of grass

seasoned with thistle and nettle

and then

the richer consequence

of thickened cud

swirling around

the tongue

and cheeks

and teeth.

You don’t know

so you go,

you bony,

small,

illegitimate herd.