Featured Poem

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We Came from Soil

 

We came from soil   so this 

         is renewal   working before 

the rain   hands in the 

         loam on Easter Monday

planting garlic cloves   marking 

         out French beans   pulling up

dandelion roots cutting 

         back ivy   sieving compost.  

Odd how this skipped 

         a generation   my grandfather 

raising everything on that 

         strip of land rented from the 

mill where he spun yarn. 

         My father growing nothing in 

that blur of seasons   hardly 

         looking out from the work-

bench where he spent 

         his life in lieu of another 

life that never came   my 

         mother sowing poppies in 

soot-black earth. So here 

         we are   in our own future

digging   raking   planting 

         our hands in soil   stiff with 

age   our minds light as sun 

         on rain that is here now

slanting-in   glistening   so 

         that whatever is still green 

in us might rise again.

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Published in ‘Stand’ 2025