When We Don't Need to Explain

Bending The Arc launches today with this glorious thrutopoem from Ilse Pedler

Kitab Na't al-hayawan from the British Library Archive

when we don’t need to explain

           at one time journeying was a slow and deliberate thing – a nose to tail lurching and grunting across dusty miles and shifting, heat-shimmered sands
           and do I have to explain that camels as vehicles were not mentioned in the bible as they were so commonplace

            now, we walk in the light just the two of us, and if it gets too steep, we may sit on a bench and there may be other people or no one at all and then we may marvel at the shell of a tree and how the new shoots seem to grow from the rim of it – from the thin layer of bast that is all you need
            and do I have to explain that it is No Work Wednesday and the only instruction is to go out somewhere – go out and be under the sky and translate clouds

            when we go into town on Saturday we pick and dig and our bags overflow with carrots and beans and when we send the children off like little squirrels to forage we laugh when they come back with hands full of strawberries, their lips red and fingers sticky – because strawberries are the colour of love and the taste of hope
             and do I have to explain that all high streets are greened and street box allotments full of fruit and veg are free to pick and eat as you walk along – small fists uncurling to many open palms, all receiving and giving

            then there is the rocking, a rhythmic thrum that shifts air molecules so it seems like they synchronise and sway the blood cells in our veins and that under swooping skies babies sleep better and we are connected and grid and harnessed and roofs are panelled and capturing and we look to the sun and we feel the thrum 
            and do I have to explain that there is a wind turbine on each new estate and solar panels on every new house and if there is vibration in the air it is the background track of comfort and we have become thrum and pulse

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Ilse Pedler is a poet and veterinary surgeon. She moved to the Lake District in 2020 and perhaps inevitably writes more about landscape than animals these days. She is particularly interested in rewilding and other local projects and how we can heal the environment we live in.

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