Castle Poetry

Abandoned Campsite

Dartmoor, 2024

It happened here. 
This wild place.
This hilltop.

His phone yelled 
at the sky.
Then the helicopters came.

He left a right mess –
carbon-fibre skeletal frame,
nylon flysheet skittering in the wind.

Of course, out here
mothers lose 
children every day.

Some eggs fail to hatch.
Fox-cubs starve,	
foals drown in floodwater.

A waste of bone
stories mulched to peat.
The risk of motherhood – 

loss a legacy of stars – 
hymn and glory infinite galaxies.
Moon skull-white. Sun a whirling mass.

Here, clouds downpour marshes, 
fog holds me softly but 
I’m soaked to the core.

Every sound
 – windhover’s wingbeats, buzzard’s scream, vixen’s shriek,
				                         scratch-stop-start of beetles – 
grief etched into bedrock.

Ella Walsworth-Bell is a poet and speech therapist from Cornwall who swims as often as she can. Her poems have appeared in Leon Literary Review, Morphrog, Public Sector Poetry, Strix, Acumen and A New Ulster.

She leads women’s poetry collective Mor Poets; who have created three poetry anthologies ‘Morvoren’, ‘Mordardh’ (supported by Arts Council England) and ’Mordros’, which was shortlisted for a Holyer an Gof Award. Their latest work ‘Wild Women’ is published by Inkfish Press.