pond beast

27/06/2006

Dear friends,

You have sent me an image

Of a strange, strange beast,

That visited your idyllic

Garden pond

In London’s south-east.

As this image, I descry,

I opine that it could be

A caddis fly,

Having flown in, on a seasonal jaunt,

From its probable native haunt

In the marshes of estuarine Thames;

But, in opining, I hesitate,

Since one should never

Be overcome with haste

In assigning labels and names

As flora, fauna,

And all phenomena, are each unique in every instance in time.

But I’ll tell you one thing,

It’s not a slime

Mould, old crawling monster, neither meat nor veg.

Neither is it a rush, nor is it a sedge,

For that is what it perches upon.

I doubt that it is a sea-cow, manatee or dugong

Or a skunk that emits a fearful pong,

Or a pig pulling sausages in a wagon,

Or a griffon, a phoenix or a dragon.

Since these last three are creatures of myth,

And thith, is another thing that it is not.

‘snot a polar bear, a snowy owl or an arctic fox,

For it was too hot

When your photographic shot

Was taken,

In fact, by the standards of the time and clime,

It was bleeding baking.

So this might be a tropical beast,

Which has extended its usual range

Due to the exingencies of climate change.

But, it’s not an okapi and it’s not a giraffe,

Nor a humourless kookaburra, that’s lost its laugh.

Not a meerkat, an aardvark, or an orang-utan.

Not an alligator, crocodile or a caiman.

It’s not an elephant, a termite or even an ant;

Nor eater of ants, whether small or giant,

Or armoured like pangolin or armadillo

Nor snake that’s crept in through small door or portillo.

Nor mitten crab transported in bilge of ships,

Nor lamprey hanging on with carnivorous lips.

It isn’t a toad.

It isn’t a frog,

Nor a stag beetle bred in a well-rotted log.

I can tell you that, because it has no antlers,

And it’s not spotted like civets’, leopards’ or panthers’,

No, it is not spotted.

It is not striped.

But, it’s a wonderful specimen of its type.

A beast that comes, uncalled from beyond,

And visits a normal south London pond.

It’s strangely symbolic like the Greek letter sigma

And I’ve no idea what it’s called.