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From: Vol.06 N.02 – Intersecting Energies

At Sea

by Anne Casey

Brine rises, whetted as memories in my sandbagged lungs—

plastic-scrap semi-sunk in a spring tide, ragged and limp, as hard to inflate

 

I came from the sea, a distant shore pummelled even then—

beaches these days reshaped by each season, squalls outside living recollection

 

Seawater pillowed my children before they were born—

blood-warm as the currents swarming to nurture the Crown of Thorns, they thrived into life

 

Wave-surges swell on the storm-ravaged islands of my consciousness—

Welling like water-winged infants, as vulnerable to submersion; I still worry they’ll drown

 

My body grows nodules virulent as invaders engulfing virile organs—

once plump and vigorous as coral polyps, my cells too, pulse with petrochemicals

 

My temperature rises with each falling number—

Two thousand species, two thousand metres deep, two thousand kilometres wide

 

My heart sinks—

Faster than the five hundred billion plastic bags we use each year

 

My vision clouds—

Murky as forty per cent of the world’s ocean surface obscured in manmade debris

 

But, small and bright as spawn-clouds blooming—

White, gold, coral, the young surfacing, shine through seeking truth

 

Our budding hope

Published: July 2019
Anne Casey

Originally from Ireland, Anne Casey is an award-winning Sydney-based poet/writer, and author of two collections published by Salmon Poetry. Her work is widely published internationally and ranks in The Irish Times ‘Most-Read’. A former environment journalist, she is Senior Poetry Editor of Other Terrain and Backstory journals (Swinburne University, Melbourne).

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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