We’ve all had that weasel on our backs at one time or another

but perhaps we haven’t dealt with it as gracefully

as a Woodpecker in flight.

This predator senses opportunity and attacks for gain

by offering only a platitude and the empty smile

and nothing else in return.

Whereas the badger, noble creature of the forest floor, set in its ways

and looking for all the world as a master of ethnic equality, sees the situation

in black and white and fights back against the weasel, but will probably

take down the beauty of the Woodpecker at the same time.

 

Soaring above it all, the Eagle and the Kestrel fight

with a sense of majesty, each taking a bite and a nip out of the other

but always with deference they refuse to pay the barbaric and

squandering seagull far below,

picking the leftovers from the Saturday

night party off the crazed streets and it is with wonder

that these birds of mine don’t end up as bait for the weasel,

finding its throat cut forever and dying with senses fading as the Woodpecker

rider sniffs out its next meal. A meal that keeps being offered

as the badger and the Eagle conspire together to control the weasel.

 

The ant of England, who can trace his linage back a billion generations,

only has to worry about the boot treading down upon its grizzled face,

or the poison that seeps into the soiled home or the jackhammer

ripping its small narrow passages apart, aside from that

the weasel never bothers him, but the badger, not fussed for his reputation

digs in with mealy mouthed desire and sweats at the thought of all that meat.

Devoured, overpowering consuming

urge to be the only animal at the top of the lengthy chain

we have to be careful, whether ant or eagle that the

weasel doesn’t take us all for a ride.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015