Hedgehogs

When the mammoth trudged
Across the land
All those years before
The hedgehog
Heard his rumbling
Deep inside it’s core
This laborious great pachyderm
A true certainty
Probably as confident as it could ever be

But the hedgehog it’s small stature
And physiology head in good stead
That apparently
An underrated killer of serpents of the ground
Dispatched together with venom
Which never ever found
It’s toxic worth inside the hogs
Each biochemical dram
Saw off the vicious vipers
That received the hedgehog slam

In my alpine garden
Mrs hog appears
She loves my wooded forestry
The leafy glades she clears
Wildness it is opportune
Brambles hollies oaks
Hazels everywhere
I leave her out her water
Clearly she’s aware
Slugs and caterpillars
Beatles and their larvae
These tiny waking laboratories
She just loves to share

All of natures crawlies
Insects are her thing
She’s partial to slow worms
Her wandering doth bring
Nature back to the garden
Each tireless hunting spree
Consists of rabid insect gorging
And not occasionally
Slow worms in the dry stone walls
Frogs and newts here too
Many birds share songs with us
And the mountains view
Half way up a country path
A track of wildness grows
And my home is atop this hill
Where a poet write his prose
A fox comes by in the morning
His crepuscular embrace
The corvidae are evident
All over the place
Hedges wild flowers meadows
Slate and stones paths
Where
The fireweed and the dandelion
Are answers to my prayer