Mysterious Primates
I’ve seen them again –
actually not that hard
to catch sight, there are
so many of them, now.
We call them ‘small feet’
because of their prints;
their adults’ match
our smallest children’s.
They wear skins – so little hair –
all kinds of skins they can detach
in summer which, I admit,
may be convenient.
They build things, many things;
clear long strips through the woods.
They start from scratch, cover them
in stones and tar, for amusement.
Few of them eat,
at least few gather anything
we’d want to snatch and,
of course, they can’t reach high.
We’ve tried to communicate,
but their voices are slight,
ours a mismatch for their chatter.
Their sounds don’t carry.
We stay out of their way,
let them be about their lives.
‘Sasquatch’, they say, ‘Sasquatch’
and point through the trees.
Simon Williams has been writing since his teens, when he was mentored at university by Roger McGough. He has nine collections, the latest being The Magpie Almanack (www.simonwilliams.info), from Vole, published December 2020. Simon was elected The Bard of Exeter in 2013, founded the large-format magazine, The Broadsheet and published the PLAY anthology in 2018.