Above the Ramparts by Benedicta Norell

Above the Ramparts

There’s a new garden by the sea

where they’ve been planting poets,

where Maupassant and Hugo, cactus

and palm, all reach for the warm wind.

I ask how tall the plants might grow 

in twenty years; or will they die

for want of water, or from flooding

as the oceans rise above the ramparts?

And will there be a place for us,

a gritty corner where we could cling?

Will there be a place for us, together,

as the oceans rise above the ramparts?

In memoriam Lotta Magnusson-Gripon

Benedicta Norell is a former editor whose work has appeared in anthologies, including To Lay Sun into a Forest from Sidhe Press, and magazines, webzines and podcasts such as Blue Press, Atrium Poetry and Poetry Worth Hearing. Terrible Mother, her debut pamphlet published by Black Cat Poetry Press in 2024, sold out in a few months. She is working on a collection about menopause and midlife.