Whipsnade Zoo, Saturday

 On Saturday we went to Whipsnade Zoo

despite the rain.

My kids thought it was just the thing to do,

complained we’d not been out in bloody ages

so I braced myself to overlook the pain

of animals in cages

and try to have a bit of family fun.

“It’s a conservation zoo”, explained my son.

The day before a storm had tipped a tree

against a fence

and two brown bears had managed to break free.

The zoo, oblivious, opened its doors

and the public, with its usual common sense,

stared into ursine jaws

through the lenses of their Nikons and iPhones

as hungry bears picked over wild boar bones.

And so Whipsnade, that conservation zoo,

with heavy heart

appreciated what they had to do.

They’d drilled for this, a thousand trial runs,

were primed in minutes from a standing start

with loaded guns.

The public warned, the keepers did their duty

and shot down poor Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

We stood, the kids and I, and watched the bear

who had survived.

She climbed a hollow tree and sniffed the air

then gazed at me with nothing in her eyes

as happy families steadily arrived.

Their cheerful cries

and impatient children tugging at my sleeve

pulled me back somehow to games of make-believe.