Mædwe
I pasture / sweet vernal, dogstail / I grassgrow—a green
sea / I seed / wind-carried over hedge / I am all edges /
fenced in / cornered / crop mother—I kindle wheat / I am
picked clean / left idle, I fallow / furrows seep coins, flint,
clay pipes / once, I tree’d / an arboreal memory / child of
Anthropocene / freed, I meadow / I petal for the sun /
yarrow, cowslip, knapweed, campion / pollen-ripe, I
butterfly / I carder bee / alive / yes, I breathe
do you speak field?
it’s sunrise sunset
or the space in between
perhaps there is rain
I’m trying to listen
grass spills its syllables
mycelium whispers
dead leaves / ash keys
worm’s slow accordion
I’m trying to listen
the field
drops a rabbit in my path
shock of a fox
a handful of crows
the hedge puffs out sparrows
& angry blackbirds
I’m trying to listen
[minnow-shimmer] [watersong] [blush of crayfish understone]
I am trying to make sense of it all
to translate it into my one language
Picking up my prescription
Sometimes as an antidote to fear of death, I eat the stars – Rebecca Elson
There are no stars in this city.
I nibble on concrete,
sip cocktails of NO₂. I’m dying
for a decent constellation.
Would some of those neons do?
Or the flashing red lights on a high-rise?
I FaceTime Olivier in the Pyrenees.
He points his camera at Ursa Major,
Cassiopeia, Orion’s Belt…
Star after star devoured
through my screen. I whisper Merci,
then sleep like a baby.
When the woman in Boots
tells me I’m glowing,
I say it must be the new meds.
I keep quiet about the stars.
On the tube ride home, they twinkle
in my stomach like a Tiffany’s heist.
_____________
Corinna Board teaches EAL in Oxford. She grew up on a farm, and her writing is often inspired by the rural environment. She particularly enjoys exploring our connection to the more-than-human. Instagram @parole_de_reveuse or X/Twitter @CorinnaBoard
These poems were selected by Anthropocene guest editor Tom Branfoot.
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