12.10
At precisely ten minutes past 12am, a poem was written.
The location being less precise, we can say
that somewhere on this, our dear planet,
one poem was birthed.
Pushed through crimson, through a prism of metaphor,
through cranial channels into cramping fingers;
this poem emerges into the world
stringy and tactile,
clotted with imagery,
blue around the lips with the yearning of its own existence.
And that poem will begin with a fact,
just like this one,
and end with a fact even more profound
as it grows through itself,
as trees rooting through pavements
or the bleeding out of ink,
uncontrolled and gentle in its persistence.
And this poem,
grown and sustaining itself on this,
our dear planet,
will reach your ears one day.
And for all of its talk of trees, and birth,
and our incomprehensible humanity,
I hope that you hear:
I love you.
This was all for you.
It will get better.
Emily Rose Galvin is a former Staffordshire Poet Laureate and Poet in Residence at Lichfield Library. Her debut collection ‘the dew point’ was published with Verve Poetry Press in September 2021.
Instagram: @by.emily.rose