Sunday 18 July 2010

the turkeys

when I was a boy
and my mother walked with me
to school
I'd go ahead
and stand and wait
beside some turkeys
penned-in
beside a brook
in a stand of trees

and there I'd listen
to the turkey-talk,
their glottal glug and guttural gobble,

but then one morning
those turkeys were gone
and part of the fence was down

and there in the gloam
it occurred to me
that the trees
were furious
for they clacked
their branches
and rustled
their leaves
and tossed
their heads
and waved
their arms
and threw
their twigs into the air
and made great moans

and so I said
that the wind
was made by the trees
and that was how
they spoke to us and
then
my mother
told me how it was
that I was
wrong

______
gw2010

13 comments:

  1. Mothers are always wise...good poem, Gwilym :)

    wishes,
    devika

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  2. Thank you both, Devika and John.

    Devika, yes, in this case you're right, and so I've mildly retouched the ending.

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  3. yes, that ending sounds wiser :)

    wishes,
    devika

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  4. Devika, yes you're right. I think the poem is trying to say that the school was the equivalent of a turkey farm and that the boy's early education really came from his mother. The trees are of course the problems to be solved. In this way I think the poem works. Anyway, it's finished now.

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  5. sometimes we learn, then we unlearn, then relearn...learning continues; i think pure learning occurs when in harmony with nature :)

    this may sound a bit of lecture...but thats been my experience, Gwilym :)

    wishes,
    devika

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  6. Devika,
    I think you're absolutely right here too. And it's no coincidence, for instance, that my favourite poets, poets like Dylan Thomas, D H Lawrence, and lately W S Merwin, are "in harmony with nature". They are not poets of the book, they are poets of the real world.
    Gwilym

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  7. There's also an environmental aspect to the poem. This poem is a two-edged sword.

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  8. yes Gwilym, i did see that :)

    Dylan Thomas and DH Lawrence as a favourite of mine too...Walt Whitman, Robert Frost...i don't know, i find poetry very engaging :)

    wishes,
    devika

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  9. A fox maybe? Lovely poem. If you have time go to Mrs Nesbitt's space (she is on my blog list) and read the poem about fish and chips - think you will like it.

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  10. Ah, Weaver. That's one thing I miss being over here, real fish 'n' chips, the other is real ale.

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  11. Yes, enjoyed this with all its meanings. And turkeys are useless ventriloquists - glottal, glug, guttural: gottle of geer.

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  12. Thanks Gordon,
    totally useless the are, you can even see their beaks moving
    :)g

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