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.)
Jacoby Hayward
The Greening
It stole in leaf by leaf
Spring overspreading
Dust mote pollen virus,
In through doors and windows
Eyes and nostrils.
The least active went first:
Rows of shrubs on the sofa,
Curled bramble on park bench.
Then the rest, bark clad.
Some took themselves away
Became a circle grove on high hills.
Some stood defiant,
Carried on, kept the towns full.
Rustling aspen, blossoming magnolia.
Across the country the people turned
Until the land was forest
Restored.
Jacoby is a writer of short fiction and poetry currently living in Stoke-on-Trent. She was the 2018 winner of the Potteries Prize for flash fiction, and returned the following year as a judge. Her flash novella Kell to the Life is currently looking for a publisher. In the meantime she is working on a mixed genre piece about her native chalklands.