A new broom sweeps leaves into a tidy pile. It’s a playground for pups, then a home for hedgehogs, then mulch for new seeds. On and on, and the new broom grows old and uncertain, and the leaves pile up again. The groundsman sits and smokes a rollup, puffing rings and question marks towards the milky Sun. His jacket’s patched, his trousers frayed at the ankles, and his boots can barely remember that they were once animals. The scene’s cracked like old ceramics, like a vase dug from the deep, then placed behind glass in a small museum, with a handwritten card reading: On the day you were born, a tree fell in the forest, and somebody heard it, so we don’t need to ponder such abstracts, but weep for the forest that’s long, long gone. Take up your broom, o my beloved, and sweep clean or, if you’re a witch from a children’s picture book, straddle it and fly to the Moon.
Oz Hardwick is the author of fifteen poetry collections, most recently Actioning the New University (Yaffle, 2026), along with several collaborative publications. He has won numerous prizes: some for poetry, others for his knowledge of 70s music trivia, and many through sheer luck. A space rock obsessive, he has recently contributed to albums by Space Druids, Incubus Lovechild, Otherworld, and Astral Magic. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University. www.ozhardwick.co.uk