It’s day 11 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats. Today’s quote is from ‘The Harp of Aengus’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds and Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,’
Jane’s blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/a-month-with-yeats-day-eleven/
This morning I was watching Planet Earth, and so followed the poem.
My poem today is called: SURVIVAL OF THE WITLESS
And swept is the land
over the Okavango,
water washing once more
over earth that was once arid,
Impala in movement;
hind legs on the hop
dogs on their tales
in packs panting
along their ranks
as the hunt for hunger
breaks through bushes
newly beating, boughs
bending over fresh bones
licked bare after yesterday’s scare,
nature’s race is a rough one
from the sun’s rise
till she is toppled
by the moon’s eyes,
watching, observing the order
of hurt and hunger;
who is the bravest,
who can last the longest,
who can seek out the scent
of something stirring
on the curling wind of the Kalahari,
who can catch the perfume
of prey prancing, dancing
through the ignorance
of what lies in wait
on the sacred sands
once devastated, now saturated.
And swept is the land
as time turns to toil
over ancient soil,
its reckless routine returning
like the water returns, like the
rivers refill, like the impala prance
and the dogs devour their dance.
And so swept is the land
and turned is time
but the moon’s eye
will tell in turn
of the beasts, like you and I,
who walked on two paws
and shot each other
with pistols in the other,
survival of the fittest
now lost in the hands of the witless.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 