A Planet Where by S.A. Leavesley

A Planet Where

by S.A. Leavesley

S.A. Leavesley is an award-winning poet, fiction writer and journalistOverton Poetry Prize winner 2015, her new pamphlet, How to Grow Matches, is forthcoming with Against the Grain Press in 2018. She has been published by the Financial Times and The Guardian, on Worcestershire buses and in the Blackpool Illuminations. An occasional climber and surfer, she also loves swimming, cycling, walking and being outdoors. 

http://www.sarah-james.co.uk/

 

A Planet Where


 

Imagine the wind grabs fistfuls of leaves,

a creak of trees loosens our moorings,

then our garden lifts up at each corner.

The lawn’s rugged shimmer of green Wilton

rises from parched soil and floats over the fence

with us in patio chairs and pants on the line.

 

Stems bent sideways to sudden tassels,

roses, marigolds and poppies fly with us,

up, gentle as steam from the day’s

first cup of tea. Behind us,bare earth

and our house: a bold full stop

in paragraphs of tarmac and brick.

 

Neighbours turn their heads, but no

chance to wave. We’ve floated free

from cities and time…drift over fields

of bee-rippled clover and slow rivers.

Our eyes follow the flow backwards, up

hills and scree to their untapped source.

 

Still we rise, high enough soon to feel rain

in our throats. We gulp like fishes.

Below, land shrinks to a patchwork

of meadow grass, untarred beaches,

sturdy cliffs and oyster-plant shingle.

Apples grow untouched.

 

Our carpet of garden now flimsy

as a cotton sheet, we gaze down

at the telescoped world. From here,

it looks a planet where we could settle,

fall in love and build ourselves bright lives,

lives of more than polluted star dust.

S.A. Leavesley

 

 

 

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