Evergreen - Em Gray 1 Apr Written By Andrew Stuck One of the Top 40 submissions in our 2023 Urban Tree Festival writing competition. Evergreen “Long ago discharged,I revisit the tree at the mental health centre, lover-tender touch the keloids of its burls.Higher, its leaves are smooth-edged. I once presumed two species –one, with its spikes and clinginess, the well-established other.Since, I’ve learned a holly grows sharp lower to the ground for self-protection –it can leaf from one body a spectrum.In this garden, thin platitudes are screwed to a backless bench –seek and you shall find,hasty climbers have sudden falls.The tree remainsas mute and patient as an elephant’s knee, its branches an easy ladder.Here, small Picassos, are the bark eyes I remember that have borne untellable witnessto the ones who pause to lock/unlock their quick-getaway bikes, search for fresh tissues, callmum.Amongst sap-bright lichena V between two eyes invokes an owlwho I imagine circling sadly the crossed boxing upof a single swerved gaze, a patient’s mismatched socks.Darling, the owl (allowing me to stroke her wings) might say –here are berries for the darkest days.What’s clipped for the taking grows back.” Em Gray Em Gray is a poet and artist from Brighton. She recently won second prize in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition. Twitter: @Em_words Andrew Stuck
Evergreen - Em Gray 1 Apr Written By Andrew Stuck One of the Top 40 submissions in our 2023 Urban Tree Festival writing competition. Evergreen “Long ago discharged,I revisit the tree at the mental health centre, lover-tender touch the keloids of its burls.Higher, its leaves are smooth-edged. I once presumed two species –one, with its spikes and clinginess, the well-established other.Since, I’ve learned a holly grows sharp lower to the ground for self-protection –it can leaf from one body a spectrum.In this garden, thin platitudes are screwed to a backless bench –seek and you shall find,hasty climbers have sudden falls.The tree remainsas mute and patient as an elephant’s knee, its branches an easy ladder.Here, small Picassos, are the bark eyes I remember that have borne untellable witnessto the ones who pause to lock/unlock their quick-getaway bikes, search for fresh tissues, callmum.Amongst sap-bright lichena V between two eyes invokes an owlwho I imagine circling sadly the crossed boxing upof a single swerved gaze, a patient’s mismatched socks.Darling, the owl (allowing me to stroke her wings) might say –here are berries for the darkest days.What’s clipped for the taking grows back.” Em Gray Em Gray is a poet and artist from Brighton. She recently won second prize in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition. Twitter: @Em_words Andrew Stuck