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?
By David Selzer