Nature Done and Dusted

Lough Eske, carelessly thrown beneath the Bluestacks;

if my mother was here, she’d say ‘pick that up, fold it and put it away.’

And how do you think Lough Eske would look folded into a rectangle?

‘Tidy’ she’d say (I’m doing her a disservice mentioning her here),

but tidier still behind an interpretive centre with paved walkways,

playground, benches, coffee shop, garbage bins, signposts,

parking spaces for buses, tourism statistics on an ever-ascending curve,

local politicians queuing for photographs beside  ‘Lough Eske Recreation Park’.

International Conferences, brochures, signposts to the future:

Namibian Dune-Surfing, Amazonian Canopy Adventures;

the whole wild world folded into neat tidy rectangles;

explorers lined up three-deep at the ticket kiosk.