16 - Ouroboros

#NaPoWriMo Day 16 and that night I wrote a piece of free verse inspired by the prompt “Golden eagles could be returning back to English skies after 150 years” as part of my ongoing (possibly Adrian-Mole-esque) attempts to get a news poem into Rattle, which I’m becoming increasingly sanguine about and just seeing it as an opportunity to do a submission to a friendly place and keep finding fresh, weekly prompts for easy poem-inspiration.

Easy. Right. So the process went something like this (skip to the poem if you’d prefer):

Me: I shall write a poem about golden eagles. Golden eagles are great!
Writing Brain: Uh, yeah. Great.
Me: No, we agreed: golden eagles. The Patreon subscribers picked it unanimously. We just did hours of research and shit.
WB: Mmmh. Not feeling it.
Me: Deal with it.
WB: [stubborn silence]
Me: [tries to tempt WB out with setting up an acrostic]
WB: [tumble weed]
Me: Fuck’s sake, fine. [slumps] Leave me, then. I’ll just sit here, bereft. Like this nation bereft of all those species that got hunted to extinction…
WB: Oh, hello.
Me: What?
WB: Say that again?
Me: Uh. “Fine, leave”?
WB: No, the other thing.
Me: “We are a nation bereft”?
WB: That’s the puppy.
Me: Uh, okay…? [starts writing]

[time passes]

WB: Ooh, we could expand this list of extinct British animals…
Me, cautiously: I guess…?
Me: Wait. Are we writing a political poem instead of a nice nature poem…?
WB: Maaaybeeee…?
Me: Fine, I supposed ecology is pretty political…
WB, absently: Now you’re getting it…

[after a couple of stanzas]

Me: So, just a short one, after last night’s sestina, right?
WB: Oh, absolutely.
Me: Right.

[80 minutes later]

Me: Why is the poem going over the page?
WB: Nearly done…
Me: You mean it’s not finished yet?!
WB: Shh, I’m busy.
Me: [growls]

[time passes]

WB: Hey.
Me: What? Done?
WB: Not exactly. Could you go look up a list of reintroduced species to the British Isles for a kind of rollcall near the end?
Me, throwing hands up: I guess!

So that all happened. And then I realised that my delivery during the recording left a lot to be desired (there was definitely a bit that came across horribly classist, for one), so I re-recorded the last two stanzas. And then did the last one again, because WB chipped in saying “eh, that’s a bad assonance” (you’re a bad assonance!) and rewrote two lines. And then there were bits which no amount of cleaning could fix which needed pick-ups and that’s why I’m a day late releasing this NaPoWriMo poem (which doesn’t even mention golden eagles by name…), officer.

Anyway, remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear the much-belaboured recording of this piece (and the fifteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ouroboros-155915962

---

We are a nation bereft –
we swept out all the things we
didn’t think fitted our
image, insisted on diminishing
diversity, this unenlivened
island made bland as butter,
utterly subsumed in
consuming greatness.

No more bears or boars,
these shores cleansed,
carcass flensed; we’d throw you
to the wolves, but that’s not
an option anymore.
The aurochs gone, the great auks
axed, taxed by a species that
sees vulnerability and
bleeds it dry.

Anything deemed too big for its boots
is rooted out and then, ironically,
we go looting elsewhere, and
dare to complain when these actions
have consequences, begging the
question: when does entitlement
get fed up with itself?

I exaggerate, of course:
#NotAllHumans actively stamp out
the damp borders of this
hoarding nation, saying
“Let’s slay things, let’s make this
frayed system more desiccated,”
dedicating efforts to ending
indigenous and migrant
variety alike.

But, gods help me, enough of us
do nothing, and that’s… bad.
So thank heavens for those
closer to the ground by choice,
voices raised, daring their best,
questioning the status quo,
knowing that all this hard
graft might not stem disaster, but we’ll
sink faster in the quicksand of
handing off our responsibilities.

And see? The Fisher King
builds, buck-toothed and broad-tailed
in this ailing nation once more.
White storks haunt lake shores,
scores of pine martens and many tiny ants
gathered and nurtured and handed
back to a land that needs them.
Demanding more than monoculture,
ungovernable greed asset-stripping
this habitat for… snacks,
has to start somewhere.

There are bison now in Kent, and the Isle of
Wight has white-tailed eagles thriving,
driving out the unchecked
predators, invader turned prey.
And hey, I know what you’re thinking:
“This place is more crowded now and
how will we cope with these new-old things
incoming, taking up space, fiercely protected,
who gets to stake their claim,
blame shifting… this way…?”

And I say: reparations from the audacious few
who caught us all up in their hunger have to
happen, so please, bring on the wonderful
thunderclap of wings broader than
I’m tall and I’ll sing you such songs
of old wrongs righted. No longer benighted,
we can be inspired, and wild,
and rightfully just a part, not
monarchs, but citizens, dancing,
balanced again at last.

What’s that, Fay? You decided to draw something you’ve never drawn before for this already very involved poem? Cool. Cool.

---

The Ouroboros represents many things, depending on the cultural background you’re viewing it from. Unity, protection, duality, completeness, the trap that is the physical universe, and the end containing the beginning (and vice-versa) being some of them. Up to you which you’d like to apply in the context of this piece…!