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.)
Gareth Culshaw
The Garden Hour
There’s a woman who’s painted
her garden with geraniums.
Grown evergreens to bring down the sky.
Hoes the soil until the moon.
Hopes to find a bulb she lost one autumn
when her eyes were told a colour
would pump up from the ground below,
North Star her kitchen window.
There’s a certain hour each morning,
before nine, but after eight,
that she sips the dew off her lips,
brews a conversation in her head.
Catches a pigeon call in the wax
of the cochlea. Snaps a rich tea
to tell the robin she’s awake.
Waits for the return, his return.
Gareth lives in Wales. He has been published in various places across the UK and USA. He is currently doing an MFA at Manchester Met. He has two collections with FutureCycle Press.