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From: Vol.10 N.01 – The Transformative Now

Politix

by Jane Campbell 
Today, as always, Alice is aware of numbness
cold-rolling along the ground toward her; 
aware of cows outside the window, 
pregnant their whole short lives to whiten her tea,
and of closing her mind to that brutality.

She believes that if she does not 
make money she will be hungry, homeless
and left covered in shit when she’s old;
that the world around her is dying
and everyone is trying to blame each other.

Alice watches water vapour nourish life,
a planet ecology full of healing green,
plant cells that read sun patterns exactly.
She watches a leaf’s first curl towards the lawn,
wonders if trees know they’ll be reborn.

There is a nuclear fusion reactor in the sky,
daily turning Alice on and off, 
but her world of machines declares it is not enough.
Alice will beg for transformation every chance she gets,
but rather than rebel, she regrets.
Published: June 2023
Jane Campbell 
winner of the 2022 Disability Arts Cymru Creative Writing Award and winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize for Poetry 2021. Her debut collection Slowly as Clouds is available now from www.indigodreamspublishing.com/jane-campbell

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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