Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

       This is my dry stone wall. I know it. It is my home.   It is not their home.  They are intruders.  True, bipeds erected this wall generations ago.  But they abandoned it to the elements.  The wild west wind was too much for them.  They neither understand the speech of marram grass, nor the calls of gulls, nor the meaning in the scurrying rodents’ feet, nor the sly movements of minor amphibians.  The silly thrush, who cracks his snails on that rough stone so close to my fangs, knows more than they knew then or know now.  They are too gross to find shelter in the nooks and crannies of my wall when the summer wind howls across the dunes, and they do not understand it is best to hibernate deep in the autumn earth, and  to emerge in March on fine days to sun oneself, so one is in fine fettle for the mating game when our girls are willing.

       My ancestors were grateful for this wall.  That is why I restrain myself when some clumsy oaf disturbs my peace in high summer, when the wind is still and the sun peels exposed pink flesh.   I slough my skin for a purpose.  They suffer in pain.  I think I am superior.   It is right that, when one is superior, one should be kind to one’s inferiors.  But their skill in those days, when they built the wall to keep their silly sheep from  wandering onto the beach, was something neither I nor my kind could possibly emulate.  We do not need to build walls. We are satisfied with our ways, and grateful for the gift of the wall in summer.

       At first the wall was just there, and the bipeds used to come and tend their sheep. They paid no attention to my family. It was left in peace.  They knew about our fangs, and that we were best left alone when we sunned ourselves.  Then the nature of their visits changed. The sheep moved away, the dunes grew and the marram grass took over.  The wall started to silt up although there were still many nooks and crannies, particularly on the leeward side, which were inhabited by creatures that provided us with a good table in summer.  We do not eat in winter.  It is the safe time.  You have to give safe time for your food to grow.

       Then something that I cannot explain happened in the pattern of biped lives.  They were no longer here all of the year, visiting occasionally to tend their silly sheep.  But, in my grandparents’ memories, they started to build their solid nests.   They came with shouts and laughter, with tears and anger.  They could neither keep still, nor could they keep silent for very long.  They did nor use the natural stone that is near here in abundance to build their nests, but came in nests on wheels that smelled foul and made harsh noises that frightened the gulls, the wagtails and, at first, my warm- blooded quadruped larder stayed clear of my wall.

       They were like us in that they did not live in their nests all year, but left them empty and silent, except in high summer.   My grandparents thought to start with that they must be hibernating, as so many sensible creatures do when winter harshness is at its most savage, and that they must have gone quietly into their nests when they were sleeping after a good meal. But no.  The wind and rain battered their nests all winter, and their nests were silent. There were four of them on the headland...

       One warm spring morning, my grandfather investigated them.  He had to be careful because he went far from the shelter of our wall, and we are creatures who avoid trouble.  It was also too early for our males’ spring warming to liven their sperm.  I cannot think of any land creature who ever troubles us, except those clumsy bipeds who have built their nests on our headland.  But there is always the danger of sudden death out of the sky.  It has never happened in my family to the best of my knowledge, but I have heard that angels of destruction can swoop from the skies and clutch us in their talons just behind our heads so we cannot use our fangs.    I am not sure that I believe it   We are so secure in our dry stone wall in summer and deep beneath the earth in winter, but I am assured that it can happen and was told, when very young, by my parents that I should always keep quite still when basking in the hot summer sun.   Then they cannot see us.

       My grandfather was disappointed.  None of the nests held any sign of life.  He had thought the bipeds would come out on an occasional warm and still spring day.  That was what he wanted, because he wished to examine them to sate his curiosity, and so he would have tales to tell to his own children.  He loved to croon them to sleep with tales about the wonders of being alive and how God, or whoever or whatever we mean by God, had provided for all creatures    in equal measure, for there were always enough rodents and amphibians near our dry stone wall, and he believed there was always enough food for them too.  We loved the rodents and amphibians, not just to eat but because they were always there for us to eat.  We thanked them as we swallowed them.

       But these bipeds who deserted their nests for most of the year, these noisy bipeds respected nothing.  The nearest nest was only three vipers away from our stone wall, and they built a smooth wall none of my family could climb to make a square around their nest with a small gate and a large gate through which their stinking moving nest would come.  My grandparents concluded that they went away in the harsh weather and lived in some warmer part nearer the sun  in their stinking noisome moving nests, only to return here to disturb our peace.

       We never wanted much of each year;  just a little time in the sun to warm our bodies, time to slough our skins as we grew older, and time to cherish our children and tell them about the wonder of the balance of nature.  But the bipeds flattened the land around their nests.  They cut the long grass with long curved knives.  My mother told me what a near miss she had when a long curved blade flashed past her head.  She had darted back to our wall, but not before a biped had seen her.  He swiped at her again as she disappeared into her hole.

       Then there was laughter, laughter tainted with fear.  I think they must fear us.  Someone must have told them about our fangs.  I don’t think we could really harm them.  We might give them a sharp pain to remind them that we should be left in peace, but they are too bulky and clumsy.  Our fangs were designed for us to catch rodents and amphibians.  Why, if we killed one of them, we would have to invite all our kin to take a share in the meal, but that is a silly thought.  None of our gapes would be wide enough to take in a biped, even a biped child. But sometimes we have felt like teaching them a lesson.

       And then, my mother told me how they blocked her hole with material that was damp at first but set hard.  They hoped to starve or suffocate her.  They were unfeeling bipeds.  They were intruders.  It was our wall, and not theirs.  But they did not realise there was a second entrance to our nest, or I would not be here to tell you about my own fury.

       Well, we reached an accommodation with the intruders.  We were specially careful to avoid them, and they did not bother us, although they might have done so had they realised how many of us there were.  We would bask in the sun in the garden when they were away, but as soon as we felt the vibration of their smelly moving nest approaching, we would slither off to find somewhere less exposed to their view.  We resented it in a sense because we had been basking in the sun in what became their garden, but was really our realm, well before they came in their silly smelly nests.

       One day last summer, they brought a new creature into the garden.  I was asleep, with one eye pointing skywards, when it entered the garden.  It made a noise worse than anything I had heard before.  It vibrated in my skull.  It made me crazy.  It terrified my brood, who slithered off to the wall.  I cowered away from it.  It ate the long grass and spewed it out in an arc.  It could not have digested it.  It came out too fast.  It made a terrible vibrating noise.  And it could not move without a biped.  I know that because another biped called from their brick nest, and the biped with the strange smelly creature left and entered the nest.  The creature stood still but continued to wail.  It angered me.  It had terrified my brood.  I went for it.  I struck again and again. I broke my fangs.

       I lived through the winter.  I told my brood all that I know, passed on our culture.  My belly was already full.  But in the spring, I was too weak for the intertwining of bodies.  My fangs hurt.  They were still broken.  When I struck to release my venom for my first meal of the year, my own ill seeped into me.  I know I must die soon, if not from my own poison, then from starvation.  My life was wholesome, and my brood will have learned a lesson.  I go happily.