Tarmac
Poem by Pippa Baldwin
a veneer of discipline
to flatten, straighten, contain.
Beneath this ordered surface
the wet earth stirs,
alive and restless,
feeding roots that reach upward,
pressing at the edges,
finding the fissure,
seeping toward light.
Insurgent textures rise:
the stubborn grain of soil,
the pulse of what persists.
Decaying organic matter
lies stretched across the pavements
an unceremonious laying-out,
exposed rather than buried.
No ground left to receive them,
only blackened streets of entombment
where the wild waits,
gathering force
beneath the surface.