This poem is a good eight years old, but still, I’m thinking of it just now because I’m lying in bed, in a van, in a heatwave in the north of France. When the wild first came alive in my mind I did my best to ignore her, did everything to walk a different path from the one she was calling me down, and yet years later here I am, my entire worldly possessions fitted into this van, parked in the shadow of a giant beech tree under a delicate & starry night sky. Yesterdayd, I lay naked in the clear water of a shallow river flowing thick with bright green weed tendrils, mud oozed through my wiggling toes & I laughed at the deliciousness of it all. Gripping hands full of long grasses & nettles for leverage, I scrambled ungainly up the steep mud bank back to my crumpled clothes, & as I pulled cotton around my body I felt a deep sense of belonging, of finally beginning to understand my place in the world. I think this poem was a prophecy to myself. Maybe it’s also a prophecy to you. The wild hunts – she’s been calling your entire life. Some of us are remembering how to listen, others still avoid her calls. Regardless of this, she hunts, and I promise this, when she finally catches you up, your life can never be the same.
Link here if you want a listen to the full piece. It featured on a Dark Mountain compilation album as well as on BBC radio3 Late Junction.
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