Hugo Schwyzer

I know, another poem about animals struck and killed on the roadway. It’s been a theme this past month, after my heartbreaking encounter with a dying rabbit; I’ve already put up Pablo Neruda’s piece. And here’s one from the decidedly unsentimental Ted Hughes, who could write the animal body better than any of his contemporaries. Hughes had a radically different approach to nature, but his love for the wild was immense.

I’ve driven down through Somerset on the back B roads of the southwest. And since I was a little boy, I’ve been giving burials to the dead animals I found on various streets and roadways. I may be an effete suburban liberal, but I have no fear of blood and guts and torn-up bodies. (Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m scared to handle even dead rattlesnakes.) In the end, love generally conquers squeamishness.

Coming Down Through Somerset

I flash-glimpsed in the headlights — the high moment
Of driving through England — a killed badger
Sprawled with helpless legs. Yet again
Manoeuvred lane-ends, retracked, waited
Out of decency for headlights to die,
Lifted by one warm hindleg in the world-night
A slain badger. August dust-heat. Beautiful,
Beautiful, warm, secret beast. Bedded him
Passenger, bleeding from the nose. Brought him close
Into my life. Now he lies on the beam
Torn from a great building. Beam waiting two years
To be built into new building. Summer coat
Not worth skinning off him. His skeleton — for the future.
Fangs, handsome concealed. Flies, drumming,
Bejewel his transit. Heatwave ushers him hourly
Towards his underworlds. A grim day of flies
And sunbathing. Get rid of that badger.
A night of shrunk rivers, glowing pastures,
Sea-trout shouldering up through trickles. Then the sun again
Waking like a torn-out eye. How strangely
He stays on into the dawn — how quiet
The dark bear-claws, the long frost-tipped guard hairs!
Get rid of that badger today.
And already the flies.
More passionate, bringing their friends. I don’t want
To bury and waste him. Or skin him (it is too late).
Or hack off his head and boil it
To liberate his masterpiece skull. I want him
To stay as he is. Sooty gloss-throated,
With his perfect face. Paws so tired,
Power-body regulated. I want him
To stop time. His strength staying, bulky,
Blocking time. His rankness, his bristling wildness,
His thrillingly painted face.
A badger on my moment of life.
Not years ago, like the others, but now.
I stand
Watching his stillness, like an iron nail
Driven, flush to the head,
Into a yew post. Something has to stay.