Edge Of The Ceramic-Rimmed-Potted Earth
By Natalia Figueroa Barroso
Published 9 December 2024
your hardcover copy of Love in the Time of Cholera
rests on my nightstand like your bones
rest in peace wrapped in the soil of our homeland
i replant the daisies you left me—to remember our disappeared & our migration story—into a ceramic pot made from the earth i now call home
on my blistering kitchen windowsill, i place our flowered history by the corner
where daddy longlegs tangle their thin translucent webs
sunbeams seep through the finger-marked glass pane & long-limbed shadows point to a past
buried
at the back of the mind
rammed—at the edge
of the ceramic-rimmed-potted earth
i watch your daisies find the waking sun
i watch the daddies find their home soil
& i shy smile as
they tumbleweed their threadlike legs towards the ring of raylike petals
open-faced
open-armed
a match made by us
sunlight spins with the rotation of the earth orienting my mind
into the pinkish glow of Venus’ Girdle
drawing strings of thought—tightly squeezed, like a bud—one that when blooms…
takes
breath
away
but i smell you—beside me as fragrant & as flamboyant as your daisies
death does not do us part
death has nothing to do with us
& i drink your scent like Florentino Ariza drank perfume & ate gardenias to try to taste
his amor Fermina Daza once more
Each year as part of Poetry Month, we run the 30in30 Writing Competition. Writers from across the continent are encouraged to enter a 3-line poem or excerpt to win a book by a contemporary Australian poet every day of the month. Three poets were selected from over 2,400 entries to develop their poem further with editorial support from Red Room Poetry staff, and paid publication of their poem. In 2024, the winners of the competition were Kathryn Reese, Natalia Figueroa Barroso and Bradley Bradley.
Natalia drew from her winning excerpt to craft this commissioned poem. Check out the prompt and poem that inspired her below.
List five objects in the room and write a poem combining them into one story.
Hasib Hourani
#30in30 #PoetryMonth
