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By Matthew Edgeworth
We used to think we were surrounded
by the wild, and if we travelled out
in any direction there it would be -
the unexplored forest, the river
leading us up to its hidden source,
high in the mountains where glaciers
glittered in the sun and the eagle flew,
the broad seas, or rolling desert dunes,
limitless oceans of windblown sand,
far from the domesticating touch and
transforming power of the human hand.
Then it happened. The Absolute Outside
folded in on itself.
The Great Outdoors
of Meillassoux turned outside-in,
enclosed by culture on all sides.
Wilderness was absorbed by the matrix
of all things human, and even the giant
sphere of Earth itself was encompassed
by meshworks of orbiting satellites -
like a ball in a net, or a grizzly bear
trapped and strung up.
A headstrong hare,
free as the wind, caught in a hunter’s snare.
Somewhere within us the wild is still there,
inhabiting our bodies and our dreams,
living unnoticed in our well-swept house.
It is the spider’s nest within the wall,
the moss in the lining of the car door,
the urban fox that slinks down city streets,
avoiding the glare of the headlights.
Encapsulated all, yet their wildness
is not lost.
A buried river running through,
there may even be, as part of me and you,
some furtive wildness in this poem too.
About The Author:
Matthew Edgeworth is a British writer based in London. Some of his poems have recently been published in Blue Heron Review, Silkworm, Plum Tree Tavern, Scarlet Dragonfly. He is currently working on an illustrated poetry chapbook entitled Embodied Things.