All right then,
I will tell you.
You have heard the word wilderness.
It was not your ordinary wilderness
With profusion of flora.
I went through that
And came to the further wilderness,
A kind of waste.
Desolation.
Breck.
It was a long way through
To scant vegetation
And little else
Save the bone-sharp
Bleakest-at-night
Call of something like thick-knee.
One would have called it lonely
Had one company –
A difficult place to maintain one’s humanity.
At times, that call
Was a soul in dereliction.
Sometimes one called to the other
But I could not see
Who it was, calling.
By day I walked about,
Often stood still
In the way of a bird
With head on one side
Watching intently,
Then began again
My slow parade
Which was not quite aimless
But roundabout into no pattern
Expectant.

Alasdair Aston

© 2005   Suffolk Naturalists' Society

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