Niall OConnor: Life and Death.

When I moved to the countryside

the killing started:

first spiders, and predator wasps,

then mice and rats,

vine weevils and fly,

beetles, mildew and blackspot.

I kill chickens now,

with both remorse and purpose,

and though the taking of life

has not yet become routine,

there is no denying

my newly acquired skills in dispatching

lives before their time, -

killing in the country,

being no crime.

Surrounded by the lives I‘ve taken,

I am no longer sure of the hierarchy

of consciousness involved,

and the more death I encounter,

the closer I get to life and its living.

Niall OConnor