He dwells in the congealing shell of a giant tortoise. He's fifteen.

"BARMOUTH

A child on a beach, alone.
Grey-eyed, thickset, kneeling to look.
'A blowy day. A large black and scarlet
hemipterous insect. Many moths

including zygaena. A cicindela -
largest genus of the Tiger beetle -
not found in Shropshire.'

Why does every gentleman not
become an ornithologist?
Gulls and cormorants take their way home
at evening on a wild, irregular course.


TREASURE MAP

The world poured back and forth a daft number of times
between mountains and drill holes of his eyes.

Fissure and sky. Bronze grass, brown-glow bog
asphodel and purple heather. 'The Welsh Borders
with my elder brother!' Hours in a wet saddle.

His pony's stringy mane. Long wriggles of shadow
through drystone walls. A treasure map painted by gods.


UGLY

The streets take little nicks out of him.
Caroline says he's ugly. His feet smell.
Everyone's do, but his are worse -

so large and full of bunions. And his big nose!
He dwells in the congealing shell
of a giant tortoise. He's fifteen.

He slinks down back alleys of Shrewsbury
not to be seen. As through the ravines
of Hades

BLISS CASTLE
'You care for nothing but shooting, rat-catching and dogs!
You'll be a disgrace to yourself and your family.'
His father is the largest man he'll ever know.

He's got to be a parson, plod through the Classics again
and read Divinity at Cambridge. So it's God
and Holy Orders? As well that, as anything. He accepts

the truth of Holy Writ. And the Creed, of course.
('It never struck me how illogical it was
to say I believed what I could not understand -

and what is, in face, unintelligible.')
What matters most is shooting. The worst thing
that could happen would be getting an entry wrong

in his ledger of shot birds. He's nineteen
and the best fun is Bliss Castle, alias Maer Hall.
Lots of cousins, three girls, and a kind

sporty uncle. In the partridge and pheasant season
he keeps his boots beside the bed
not to lose thirty seconds of shooting-time.

HE READS THAT THE MEMBRANE IN A GOLDFINCH EGG IS PROOF OF DIVINE DESIGN
How could all this muscle, nerve and glint of skin
be stitched together without intelligence?
From the white of egg, would anyone look
for feathers of a goldfinch? Who, that saw red streaks
shooting in the membrane which divides the yolk from white,
would guess they were destined for bones and limbs?

LIKE GIVING TO A BLIND MAN EYES
'I expected a good deal. I had read Humboldt
and was afraid of disappointment.'
What if he'd stayed at home? 'How utterly vain
such fear is, none can tell but those who have seen
what I have today.'

NOTEBOOK M
Her mouth is a pendulous thong. The eyes
merry brown glass like a carousel horse
and wise as an antique doll.
'When she knows she's done wrong
she hides for shame - or maybe in fear.
When she thinks she'll be whipped
she covers herself in straw.' Feelings appear
in her labial muscle, the treacly red haw
of her eye. Where are the roots of morality?
...
Man thinks himself, in his arrogance, a great
and worthy a Deity's glance. More humble -
and true, I'd assert - to think him created, not bandbox new
but slowly. From this. From the animals."

-- DARWIN A LIFE IN POEM, Ruth Padel

constant reference to Paradise Lost, John Milton. i want to read!