WARY OF THE CARCASS... (My new poem about the sad discovery of a deceased badger...)

 Wary Of The Carcass…

There was a familiar, if not invasive

Odour pervading the copse and along the lane,

One which suggested death and decay.

And the badgers’ absence

 And the silent stress

And the spectral stillness 

And the sultry calm

Became uncomfortably derisive…

There was a carcass, bloated and offensive,

Maggots wriggling all over it, flies insane

In their teeming, feeding affray.

And the malfeasance

And the stinking distress

And the curious grimness

And the cruel harm

Became unbearably intrusive…   

 

And the cadaver’s fur lay stripped,

Somehow unceremoniously clipped;

A carcass dragged from the depths of a sett

By the surviving members of its familial cete…

Pete Ray

24th July 2024…

A dead badger’s bloated remains lay in a copse at Temple Balsall.

Its fur lay scattered nearby, as if the dead mammal had been dragged from the sett by other badgers in their need to remove any possibility of disease.

I saw it first on Sunday 21st July, then during the morning of 23rd, although by that evening, maggots and flies had really begun their dismantling of the carcass…   

A trio of badgers finally and warily appeared late on the Tuesday evening but there was certainly a nervousness about them…