Something to Grouse About by Vivien Teasdale

 

Today’s the Glorious Twelfth, they say.

You’re not a grouse, you’ll feel okay.

You’ll get your gun, and gundog too,

But beware the rules – there are a few:

Tweed jacket, shooting boots and cap,

Oh, don’t you look a dashing chap.

Next, of course, you will desire

A sporting target for your fire.

A bird that doesn’t fly too fast

Or zigzags as it’s going past.

That doesn’t have the wit or gall

To not, in fact, appear at all!

For once, would you go out and play

without the guns? Find another way

to spend your money, waste your time?

Just walk the moors, or maybe climb

up hills and crags, breath in fresh air,

enjoy the sunshine, out with care

and cost, the status, snobbery, too?

Display to them the real you,

The lowly birth, the warts and all?

No, you’ll never stand that tall

It’s easier to shoot and rack

A bird that cannot fire back.

But now suppose you went one day

And found that things were not that way,

that you had now exchanged your place?

Would you enjoy the bloody chase?

The terror of the beaters cries,

The panic as on up you rise,

As dodging right and left you dart?

The drumming beat that is your heart,

Your blood that’s pulsing in your veins,

Your blood that spatters down and stains

The nice new boots and cap and gun?

Still relish that barbaric ‘fun’.