How can you speak of bleak
when there is all this glisten?
Listen to my peep of lowgrow –
no need to meet the reach of heather and sedges.
Hear dewbeads seep from the glands on my leaves
to induce a gnat’s landing.
See midges succumb to my blush of seduction –
the viscous bliss of it.
No dramatic snapcatch –
just a slow, enzymatic flow
as I fold over their thrashing,
then reduce them to juice
to the languorous tune of sunfall and rise
and the flirts of an emerald damselfly.
But I don’t wish to imply that all is perfect –
of late, a spate of hurting days
has rocked the democracy of moss
and smogged the air with burning.
The bog spurts black tears
and I fear for the here of our spongy undulations.
Once, I was a quench for searing coughs,
a smother for flickers of freckles –
now, let me douse the craze for flame and drain
in the name of grouse and houses.
Let me trap it with beautiful mucilage,
make it shrink to innocuous ooze.
And let the panic of decay unclench itself
and breathe with tannic ease
around my roots.
Susan Richardson
Susan Richardson’s fourth poetry collection, Words the Turtle Taught Me, was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award. Her work of creative nonfiction, Where the Seals Sing, is published by William Collins. From 2016-2024, she was poet-in-residence with the British Animal Studies Network, facilitated by the University of Strathclyde.
Susan can be found on Bluesky: @susanrichardson.bsky.social