SAPPERS INTO MAN'S LAND...

 Sappers Into Man’s Land…

Like sappers, the badgers had cultivated 

An underground tunnel into ‘man’s land’

And finally surfaced randomly and untidily

Into the back garden, leaving spoil

Of stones, a brick and a mound of soil

In a dank corner, shaded and melancholy.

A badgers’ subterranean passageway unplanned,

Its exit littered with the clawed detritus excavated… 

Like suppers, morsels of food were spread

Upon the parched grass, as dusk lurked 

And glum shade infiltrated

The dry shrubs and yellowing lawn.

The sappers, like infantry forlorn,

Advanced from cover, animated

And began to feed, not at all irked

By ‘man’s land’ threats, on nuts and bread…

Pete Ray

28th July 2022

I was thinking about the badgers digging tunnels rather like WW1 soldiers dug saps straight out into ‘no man’s land’ for communication purposes.

The two badgers which emerged from their tunnel into my garden had exited into ‘man’s land’ I guess and the pair began to feed on bread left for wild birds, also peanuts and badger/fox food scattered for them…

WW1 soldiers would emerge from their trenches after dark to retrieve, repair and make occasional raids, so quite suitably one badger appeared again when night fell upon the garden and I managed to catch a brief glimpse, thanks to a light in an extension room…