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From: Vol.05 N.02 – Make It So

in remembrance of disappearing towns

by Claire Albrecht

3. camberwell

 

I’ve been to wendy bowman’s farm

crushing wet wildflowers

and touching the proud face

of a pregnant cow

hearing the burst of a stream

below and the soft touch of her

feet to the lucerne

inhale a fly here and there

spit into the soil

and I stand quietly on

uneven feet while wendy and

mum and dad talk about the

encroaching mines

 

I am a child but still

I understand the anger in

her strong forehead, in the

frantic sway of her gesturing

this is real land, this is

alive and we can touch

and taste and

produce from its breath

and its heat, from all sides

the mine comes

like a storm closing in

she will not be swept away

again

Published: July 2018
Claire Albrecht

is a Newcastle based poet and PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle. Her current work investigates multimodal forms and the connections between poetry and photography in contemporary creative practice. Claire’s poetry appears in Cordite Poetry Review, Red Room’s The Disappearing, and Overland Literary Journal.

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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