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From: Vol.08 N.01 – Embodied Belonging: Towards an Ecopoetic Lyric

Field Notes on Rain

by Rachael Mead

I take my demons for a run.
Try to lose them in the grey air.
The road knows its way
between the trees.
The invisible world made solid
drums against my hood.

The fat patter brings back
that first night squatting inside
the ruin that would become home.
Windows just holes for wind,
the dark shot with volts. And company?
Those spiders weaving dreams above me.

By the waterfall, it eases.
A soft grey drift, like a good cry
in the morning leaves you
teetering on the brink all day.
The landscape draws itself
then erases into blank distance.

The green scent of decay
heavy as a fallen curtain.
Four subspecies of rain.
I keep on, hood-blinkered
through all these hills and roads
I carry along the dark bitumen.

Published: November 2021
Rachael Mead

is a South Australian poet, writer and arts reviewer. Her most recent poetry collection is The Flaw in the Pattern (UWA Publishing, 2018) and her debut novel The Application of Pressure was published by Affirm Press in 2020.

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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