Thursday, 11 July 2024

TENTATIVE, RECLUSIVE, INVESTIGATIVE... (My new poem about the badgers at Temple Balsall...)

 Tentative, Reclusive, Investigative…

(The badgers at Temple Balsall…)



Regardless of the magpies which shrieked loudly

At the pickings sprinkled about inside the wood,

Which made demonstrative sorties to the ground,  

Tentatively, several badgers edged into view to feed.


The uncanny silence was only broken just occasionally

By the squawks of those scavenging birds which stood

Firm in spite of the reclusive mammals bustling around

In the copse’s detritus of arboreal waste, rubble and dying weed.


The hole which gaped nearby, supported so crudely

By a bent metal bar, was investigated in fussy mood

By the cubs, which toiled and twisted inside with barely a sound,

Any semblance of concern for my presence spurned by their greed…


 Pete Ray

11th July 2024…



It was so quiet in Temple Balsall, for even the sheep there were silent and must have been watching the Netherlands v England match on TV…


Traffic was so light, it might have been a Christmas  Day evening from days gone by but between seven and nine badgers appeared to forage for the food provided.


Water had been added to the badger bowls too, though no napkins were provided…

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