Night in the hanger wood
no longer calls to our worst fears.
Every twig-snap insists – Here Be Monsters.
But the centaurs and gorgons of the wood
are as forgotten as Shrove Tuesday, or Lammas.
The frozen pond reflects a rationalist’s moon.
A lagoon of leaves collects in an old bodger’s stash
of spars, sucking in light to make stunning dark.
But lichen glows white on the beech bark.
What was once a scare-owl is now, to our ears,
the shriek of an owl in a wildlife documentary;
the werefox may still have a spine-chilling cry,
but he is only having sex. What was once
the abysmal breathing of some thing filled with man-hate
is now the air-conditioned hum of the 23:30
from Ashford to Ramsgate.
No, night in the beech hanger is now a backdrop
rather than the feast itself; the path in the copse
is lamplit and fit for the most risk averse;
the hanger is a feature adding value
to overlooking homes, an old wooden
exhibit in a plastic universe.
[Night in the Hanger Wood]
