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From: Vol.09 N.01 – A Poetics of Rights

In The Beginning and At The End

by Gordon Meade

In The Beginning

We are fur.
We are fin.
We are skin.
We are scale.

We are wing.
We are feather.
We are common.
We are rare.

We are plain.
We are mountain.
We are ocean.
We are mire.

We are earth.
We are wind.
We are water.
We are fire.

At the End

We are branded.
We are numbered.
We are barcodes.
We are tags.

We are shackled.
We are prodded.
We are driven.
We are dragged.

We are slashed.
We are clubbed.
We are bludgeoned.
We are stunned.

We are skinned.
We are gutted.
We are drawn.
We are hung.
Published: August 2022
Gordon Meade

is a Scottish poet, based in the East Neuk of Fife. He has been the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Dundee, and his twelfth collection of poems, EX-posed : Animal Elegies, is due for publication in October 2022 with Lantern Publishing & Media in New York.

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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