From the Oostvardersplassen

In this unnatural place, an accident of man,

Nature’s beauty and ugliness collide,

Till the very greening of spring itself stalls,

And time lies confounded, and defiled;

Whilst the white-tailed eagle passes by,

Above a pitiless land of dung and arid slow decay.

Nature has no laws, no grand design, beyond

The will of individual creatures to survive:

The needs we pointedly ascribe to Her

Are no more than ours, unrecognised –

The denied manifestation of the schemes

Of perpetual human kindlessness. 

Then break, spirit, break, in utter desolation:

For here, still here, reflected in unseeing eyes,

Searching for some momentary wonderment,

While shards of broken winter reed drift aimlessly

Within the entrapment of some bloodied pool -

The grey heron silence strikes. 

(Holland, 16^th & 18^th April 2008)