Today’s choice
Previous poems
B. Anne Adriaens
Fancy etymology for a vacant lot
The French term terrain vague enfolds
a plot of land I thought at first was vague,
undefined and malleable. As a noun,
this vague echoes on the edge of its meaning:
perhaps a patch of earth evoking a wave,
capable of conjuring the sea.
I’d picture the nettles, brambles,
dandelions and daisies swaying in the breeze
that precedes the first tide,
that would inch its way in from nowhere
to gently wet the grit and salt the rubble—
until the smell of brittle paper,
old ink and dust, rises from a dictionary:
this is an empty space, a new start. For rubbish
and weeds are matter too, however dismal and
dismissed. We can build a dream on rubble.
B. Anne Adriaens’ work has appeared in various publications, including Poetry Ireland Review, Abridged, Poetry Scotland, Stand Magazine and A New Ulster. Her pamphlet Haunt was highly commended in the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition 2024.
Jean O’Brien
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