Every year, the English fields are ploughed, corrugating the earth. Every year, the plow overturns the long-discarded history beneath the surface, a new layer exposed.
Every year, as darkness falls, I watch for them, and every year they come. Their clawed feet filthy, they scour the rich, dank furrows for broken china, clay pipes, lambs’ teeth, bones, shards of clouded glass, searching and crawling and clutching.
Leathery fingers snatch, serrated fangs crunch and crush and grind, saliva strings cobweb across open, grinning jaws.
Finally, nourished by their spoils and the weak February moonlight, they slink back to dormancy.
Every year.