Moles

Under garden and field, through humus and loam, moles tunnel

earth miners nose-diving through truffle brown

snaffling and snouting the ground in swims through soil

carving subterranean highways with shovel feet.

Nosing up towards brilliantine stars they are too blind to see

their neat little heaps punctuate green with soft sifted earth

flagrantly ignoring our boundaries, true ramblers knowing

that under turf all earth is free, moles criss-cross our land

nudging up little piles of disregard.

To be a mole-catcher was once deemed a profession

most worthy, hunting these Jersey ploughmen

with their digger feet and squiffy eyes and velveteen sheen

and even a cream-white breed in some parishes. *

Perhaps the mole-catcher would once have worn a waistcoat

made of their neat little skins, as he followed moles crossways

via their uncharted paths, knowing leaving a few to survive

would protect his trade, becoming wise in their ways.

And perhaps it is true that on moonlit nights

after a pint or two, my father went out to dig a few mounds

to augment their few, and when postcards came

warning the moles had returned, perhaps he regretted

the traps and the poison-blue worms he slipped

into their caves

for he knew that one day he too would be

in l’rouoyaume des taupes, the kingdom of moles **

berthed deep in the berried leafy clod

pressed tight with fusty soil muffling his ears

not hearing their digger feet scratching the ground

nuzzling close, tunnelling free.

* a cream-white form occurred sparingly in several parts of Jersey chiefly in St Lawrence and St Martin...  Frances Le Sueur, A Natural History of Jersey, 1976.

** dans l’rouoyaume des taupes (in the kingdom of moles) is a Jèrriais euphemism for being dead.

This poem was a runner up in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2013.