In a one storey Gothic-kitsch building

with small steeples – where Abbey Road meets

Mill Street – attached to the Bridge End Hotel,

opposite the pelican crossing,

angled on the corner of Wharf Hill

that leads steeply up to the canal

and, over the narrow, hump-backed bridge,

left to Ysgol Dinas Brân and right

through the sheep fields and onto the hills

there is an eclectic bestiary:

the hare about to box, the barn owl roosting,

the erect meerkat, the leery hyena,

each an exemplar of this ancient art –

the beasts of the forests and the fields

as trophies, outlasting in effigy

their killers. The high school students walk past

blasé but assorted foreign tourists,

serious walkers, narrow boat sailors

and strayed revellers stop and wonder.

Do any of the them wake suddenly

before a cold dawn and remember

that they had been dreaming, in the silent

watches, of a herd of bright, glass eyes

glowing red, amber, green?