Future Green
By Kate Fagan
One raindrop lands on a leaf,
trampolines off
a spine of Wollemia nobilis.
A cosmos has no border. Plants
foil taxonomy
as roots lift tags,
trees hang nameless
in nets like interstellar dust.
Futures without scale
sleep in a seed bank
vital as thousand-year rain. Lichens form
their own story
on trunks and rock walls.
Tomorrow
continents will crack apart
like ice shelves
cold in warming salt.
Spore archives breathe an allegory made
in grass,
sovereign green,
hard to classify.
Continuing our partnership with the Royal Botanic Garden as part of our New Shoots program, award-winning poets Kate Fagan and Peter Minter were commissioned to create a series of poems inspired by the history of the Garden. These poems, including Kate's 'Future Green', were performed at a special event on Sunday 12 November and were then 'planted' in the garden.