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@janpsolivagant.bsky.social Sep 18, 2026, 6:05 AM

Thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
#PoemsAbout #Strays

#poetry: ©Jan Peters, 2025

#poetrycommunity #PoetsOfBluesky #grandparents #70s #familylegend #Norfolk #Sectarianism #Dogsky #CairnTerrier

Wandering Cairns

Cobalt-black, grey-granite
Cairn: waymarking erratic in a
Norfolk market town.

With coal-scuttling-snouted
Visage, rump soot-sullied - a
Dogged, itinerant Diogenes:

Mendicant wanderer whose
Waystation is a police cell.
Bored, grinning constable
Ferries him home in a squad car
To my grandparents.

My grandmother fears him.
He snarls at her doggy-choc,
Bone-meal, salmon-pâté,
Titbit-miscellany ministrations –
With good reason.

Her other charges barely make it
Beyond whelphood:
Adipose early departures.

Dougal -
Cantankerous Cairn -
Much like my grandfather:
Compact, doughty,
Formidable, flinty.

Moulded by Midlands mining-village
Methodism, my grandfather
Rarely attends church, takes
Umbrage at candles, incense -
Papist frippery – when he does.

In town,
Wandering Cairn on his
Daily procession up to the
Bexwell Road presbytery:
Black-cassocked with
Granite-grizzled pate.

Northumbrian saint-king
Eschewing modernity – as
Sedevacantist, he celebrates
Tridentine Latin Mass in
Bloody-minded defiance of
Bishop and Pope, whom he
Gleefully condemns as Heretics.

This stance earns him:
Devoted followers among
Parishioners, global
Notoriety, and my
Grandfather’s
Unstinting, but
Grudging admiration.

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

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