I See Faces in Trees
I see faces in trees & please, please, do not reject the very idea of it; their
expressions are my portal to pre-history. Hoary old, bearded men: wild haired &
inconsolable, heads slightly bent, mouths open, eyebrows arched - reveal fierce emotions.
The antique faces mutely howl in perpetuity at atrocities committed down the countless days.
I sense their immutable screams through my stout walking boots treading the newer springy
moss & crispy leaves, hypodermic pine needles & ribcage twigs - covering those primordial
layers.
I see faces in the patterned grains of bedroom furniture; always sinister, always
signaling catastrophe – left there by nature’s design - unsettling at first dark &
first light. The grim artistry of felled trees is a revelation. The axe & saw reveal an
unwelcome portrait, make benign furniture menacing.
Through gaps in forest canopy, I see faces in clouds: loud exhibitionist ones
racing across the turbulent sky, laughing as they flee the crime scene, looking back with
disdain, lording it over their meeker neighbors. I will hear their precipitous remains splash
on the palmate leaves before sinking into the loamy woodland floor. Their short brutal lives
unregistered, forgotten: their ephemeral plunder vaporized.
& yet, they will sustain the trees.
Killaloe Moo Cow
Ebony shiny you angle towards me head aslant, eyes sober sad, the closer you get the faster you run, your rear end swaying like a punch bag; and now your pleading expression comes into focus. You stop expectantly at the electric wire; I watch from the gate enthralled by the rurality of it all. My pockets are empty; I have nothing to proffer but my idle curiosity. Your troops follow your command of the charge of the bovine brigade. You halt and they hold back, awkwardly hoofing the earth, futilely queuing for a boarding pass to freely roam the hills in sight. You look longingly across the gap between wire and gate. A frisson of hopeless hope ripples through the sleek assemblage; portentous ear tags betray your one-way tickets to the butcher shops where you will hang like installation art and be critically acclaimed by gourmands and coveted by carnivores. It dawns on me - the tragic truth of livestock, the hulking great beauty and necessity of it. Yet again, you act as plenipotentiary, negotiating possible escape from farm gate to dinner plate with a casual passer-by. I walk away consumed with guilt, wilt under the inescapable truth of you never escaping the food chain, the steak knife cattle prod, and yes, I will consume your cousin this evening cooked to perfection and seasoned with crocodile tears, exotic fungi and a full-blooded red to drown my insincerity.
Vulpine Slaughter
Bleachy primeval bone carried on
squalls and gusts, lands blue white on
bottle green grass. Mess of juvenile fluff,
indisputable evidence, inedible remains of
vulpine trophy meal.
Urban vulpes vulpes maddened with hunger,
good fortune crossed your scavenging path. One
fledging down on your luck; your siblings soared, your
reticence stymied your escape.
Infantile quill inscribes on dark grass a life story hardly
begun; signature scrawled in downy cursive. Your untimely
death sullies suburban predictability.
Berni Dwan is from Dublin. She broadcasts about history and literature on Near FM 90.3 and gives the odd course in the Irish Writers Centre.
