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What Happened to The Wild?

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.


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