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From: Vol.10 N.01 – The Transformative Now

a good run –

by Brent Cantwell
I just can’t believe you think you are way out   		             there
running 
sustaining the last gasp of a bush-
bash
down 
a kangaroo track 
working hard to burn twice as fast
thinking your muscles 
– that old-thrill industry –
will clag 
a way –
your way –
on –
even from the other side of the valley I can see you are the track, the broken line 
of the track 
– right now! – 

but you think you are out		            there
sustaining 
a pace
in a place
thinking the broken line belongs to you –
you –
because you broke it into pieces
into GPS co-ordinates
fence lines
calorie-counted
progress
on piston-fists pumping
on oxygenated blood feeding a brain 
forward –

and from the other side of the valley I am tense about the future –
I am tense about the endorphin-push of progress –
that this easy-amnesia now 
will forget to track
the body 
beneath 
its feet –
and you will forget –
you will stack-it
down 
some
other
spine –
a spine sustaining our pace      – impossible –       a place out 		        there 
and when you get back –
done –
half a charged calf 
of sun-light 
left –
you will say 
on the broken 
line
of a breath
snatched 
from the lungs 
of the world,
I had a good run 
out there
Published: June 2023
Brent Cantwell

lives with his family in the hinterland of Queensland’s Gold Coast. He teaches high school English and has been writing for pleasure for 24 years. He has recently been published in Australian Poetry Journal, Poetry NZ, Landfall, Takahe, and Foam e. He is looking forward to his first poetry collection, Tether, being published by Recent Work Press in 2023.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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