Saturday, 5 September 2020

MOUNTAIN HARE SLAUGHTER

Still the killing goes on because as of 1st August the shooting of this beautiful mammal legally resumed. I wrote the lines below in 2016 and I have struggled to write a poem that would bring the situation up-to-date. 

Hare Mountain


Imagine the mountain side, tougher than life;

slabs of cold white accentuate dark rock

in a callous world of extreme strife.

But is the habitat natural?


Moorland groomed as a paedophile would 

nurture a child.  Burning heather, degrading,

scarring the peat sponge that should

prevent run-off.  Do they care?


New growth, fresh edible tips for grouse;

bred to satiate the gun lust of estate owners 

wedded to a culture that will arouse        

my ire.  Is this criminality by class?                           


Enough.  Add Flubendazole grit, poisoned bait,

traps and game keepers to destroy the beauty

of other animals that exist. For them, fate 

determined by shotgun blast.  Ignorant or what?

 

Photographic evidence condemns dark minds, 

slaughterers of elegant hares by truck loads stand

for the photo shoot.  Bloodied bodies show the signs 

of an empathy with death!  Do enough care?


John Edwards (C) 12/13th December 2016

Re-examined January 2017 & 1st September

2020.


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