Birth of a Naturalist
by and published in Edition Seven of Pomegranate
(For S. Heaney)
That window and the dark getting in
And hiding the dust in corners
And my face there on the glass like a
Fainting spell or when
The room spins with spirits.
And outside the lamplight reflection
Of inside, like tracing paper
Held up to sky, the shape of leaves behind,
The picture changes in the frame, no clean
Lines, no flat, neat world but the rustling of
Thickets and the slime
Of gross-bellied frogs and the mud
Alive with earthworms
I think I’ll run into October
meet the chill air with clogged lungs
Pull up grass in green-stained fistfuls
Not look back at this lit window
Scratch at soil with blunted fingers
Leave the clocks and hairdryers,
The dustbins and the telephones,
And harrowing the wordless ground
Will silence all their hollow sound.
A pen is lighter than a spade
But my words dig me graves.
Shani Cadwallender
Shani Cadwallender is a twenty year old English student at Cambridge, a fact that belies her scant verbal reasoning and even scantier knowledge of books. Sometimes her poetry wins things. Other times, she unceremoniously thrusts it into the hands of well-loved Irish poets. Her first name is Bengali, her surname is Welsh, she is English, and she knows Ancient Greek. She does not believe in god, killing animals or a ‘correct’ way to speak. She likes tea, Charlie Chaplin, wordplay, toast, socialists and magpies, and probably always will.