Bread and Circuses

Chapter 85: THE VEGETARIAN’S DAUGHTER

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About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

THE VEGETARIAN’S DAUGHTER

She ate her oat-cake by the fire, Her bath was done and dried her hair, Her nightgown was her sole attire, Her towel steamed across a chair.

And as the oat-cake contour grew Eroded as a tide-worn cape, She named the jagged residue After the beast most like its shape.

“This is a pig, a growly bear, A baa-sheep” (and she bit him)—thus Her speech flowed on, to my despair Incredibly carnivorous.

At last, all wreathed in drowsy smiles, She munched the final gee-gee’s head— “Ah, Betsey, what would Eustace Miles, And what would Bernard Shaw have said?”