HCE received a lot of high-quality submissions for The Green Issue – sadly, too many to fit inside the magazine! So we offered some writers and artists who’d sent in work the chance to be published here on the website. Keep an eye on our social media for more great work like this, now that The Green Issue print magazine has been released! (For more information or to purchase your copy, visit our shop.)
Sarah Passingham
For a Time, You Will Feel
More Alive Than Ever
Connect with the trees, the sky, the season
by stretching out your body before a window.
Do not bring in today with radio, TV or Phone,
but make this day your own. Open the door
and release yourself into the wild.
Running is a sustained falling-forwards,
from first tread until the last, so keep
the body angled, relaxed, rhythmical, making
adjustments and counter claims against
the un-eveness of the planet, while keeping
the head still, gimballed evenly on both shoulders.
Take your run in silence. It will not be silent.
The birds predict your path,
your breath will labour, your footfall leaves
_____________________its echo.
This is all that’s needed.
Sarah Passingham started to write poetry to improve her prose, then found she couldn’t stop. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in journals -including: The London Magazine, Stand Magazine, Fenland Reed, Ink, Sweat & Tears – and been broadcast by the BBC. She is a columnist for Brittle Star magazine. Her latest book PUSH My Father, Polio, and Me is a family memoir published by Gatehouse Press.