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From: Vol.05 N.02 – Make It So

Brownfield

by Annette Skade

The place was riddled with shortcuts,

tunnels of shoulder-high green

we scarpered down. Under foot

startled hares fluttered

like pigeons taking off.

 

We scrabbled in muck beside

the rubble of farms long gone,

grubbed up bits of blue and white,

boles of bleached clay pipes,

hollow stems light as bird bones.

 

We laid walls of brushwood

end to end, tall stalks

of willowherb to thatch a roof,

scratched a form in the grass

to go to ground in before we flew.

Published: July 2018
Annette Skade

is from Manchester and lives on the Beara Peninsula, Ireland. Her first collection Thimblerig was published in 2013, following her receipt of the Cork Review Literary Manuscript prize in 2012. She has been published in various magazines in Ireland, the U.K. and the U.S. and has won and been placed in several international poetry competitions. annetteskade.com

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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