Moles certainly get up the noses of some gardeners -so to speak!!cheers P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Andrew Burke
Sent: 20 November 2014 06:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 'The Mole'
Like it too, Max. Particularly the homely last image! Great 'leaping'
ending.
Andrew
On 20 November 2014 15:52, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Like it, Max. One suggestion. In stanza 9/10, Max, could the 'were' be
> dispensed with somehow?
>
> eg
>
> Over the back fences
> moles went through fields
>
> at liberty.
>
> Bill
>
>
> > On 20 Nov 2014, at 3:33 am, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > The Mole
> >
> > To the back lawn at Mead Close
> > Cottage, Orchard Lane, Old Boars Hill, in which I froze with family,
> > winter of 1980,
> >
> > and on into the spring
> > when all was wakening,
> > the moles of Oxfordshire
> > sent a strong burrower.
> >
> > Wonderful the small black
> > mounds of loam out the back
> > that his invisible might
> > created in the night,
> >
> > the unstoppable force
> > of that soft blind mouse-
> > like creature! We beamed.
> > The landlord schemed -
> >
> > he and his family
> > in the large front property
> > wanted perfect turf
> > for summer croquet.
> >
> > They knew about property -
> > wasn't he a law don
> > at Oxford University?
> > where college lawns
> >
> > had solved the whole mole
> > problem to eternity
> > by pouring mole-poison
> > down mole-holes stealthily!
> >
> > Shame on the tenants,
> > mere Australians,
> > siding with moles
> > against Old Boars Hill's
> >
> > venerable practices!
> > What could we do but sigh?
> > Over the back fences
> > were fields moles went through
> >
> > at liberty. Wandering there
> > in Victorian times some
> > local poet dreamed how
> > a scholar-gypsy haunts the scene.
> >
> > While I dreamed, my son attended
> > Matthew Arnold School that term -
> > without being taught
> > a single poem.
> >
> > His sister dropped her jacket
> > at the back fence where
> > a cow almost ate it.
> > And that was our Oxfordshire.
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
'Undercover of Lightness'
http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
'Shikibu Shuffle'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-s
hikibu.html
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