From the summer writing sanctuary - Brown

Brown is not the colour of summer you say. It is the colour of the rotten and the disgarded. It is the colour of waste and distaste.

The earth, the dust, the soil in the neglected corners between paving slabs and concrete layers.

The tree trunks and branches that reach out from the ground, the shrub stems and brambles and thorns.

The leaves and petals dropping from water starved plants onto scorched grass.

The cardboard boxes overflowing at the recycling bin.

I think of outside things, nature meeting mankind in a reliant twist that feels imbalanced and often selfish. We take the brown flint pebbles from the beach and leave litter in its place. We replace the earth with concrete and pavement and tarmac.

We steal and stash resources, we become more than magpies with shiny things, there’s the taking, taking, taking until the brown earth is empty with nothing left to give.

Then we go home and consume the bounty, gluttony and greed dripping from our fingers and our mouths. We are pirates and thieves. Stuffing our faces with chocolate and bread and the beige processed offerings of a food industry that would rather we ate food from a machine than a tree or pulled from the pure earth.

In the future will we still dig for potatoes, will children grow cress on window sills or laugh at the curly carrots we grew in the dirt?

There’s a poem in here somewhere. I will dig further.

LOST & FOUND

LOST

Several socks, an earring, a jigsaw piece.

A red sweater and my favourite pair of gloves.

Around here, a few cats.

A wallet or two, keys, a hat, a laptop,

an heirloom bracelet, a wedding ring.

A job I'd had for years,

A love I thought would last forever,

A memory of something from long ago

that I don't even miss anymore more.

My sense of self.

FOUND

A pound coin in a pocket, a penny down the back of the sofa.

A old shirt that I can wash and wear again.

Winter boots that I might never need.

A place to keep small things.

Someone who wants my old stuff.

A dish from my mother in the back of the cupboard.

Enough energy to carry books to Oxfam

and unwanted shoes to Barnardo's.

A renewed love of boiled eggs

and a new love of vegan tzatziki.

A poet with endless followers who probably uses AI

and not his mind or his language

and doesn't skip over the verbs or the line breaks and wonder

does this say what I want to say?