Boots full of water, we’re bobbing for rocks as the
world swims around us. Twigs, branches, whole trees
surge by, spun by forces too huge to contemplate, but
still we plunge our hands into the icy current, in
search of perfect stones. My mother, father, and sister
are all here, strong as mountains, shining with a faith
that, although I can’t share it, bolsters my resolve
through pure example. Garden furniture, cars, and
even small buildings sweep past, bearing people and
animals, all singing songs of the sea and faraway
shores. They wave, and we wave back, before dipping
once more, then again and again, into the muddy
ooze, in search of those elusive nuggets and boulders.
They don’t have to be valuable, for these things have
no meaning anymore. And they don’t have to be
beautiful, for that is in the eye of the beholder, and all
eyes are on a world turned to water and a sky holding
nothing but storm. They only need to anchor us to this
precarious spot, close enough to each other to touch
our wrinkled fingertips: close enough to say goodbye.
Petrology for the Family on the New Floodplain by Oz Hardwick
Oz Hardwick is an award-winning European poet, widely-published photographer, barely-competent bass guitarist, and accidental academic, who has been described as a “major proponent of the neo-surreal prose poem in Britain”. His most recent full collection, A Census of Preconceptions (SurVision Books, 2022), was shortlisted for a number of international awards but didn’t win any, though he feels pretty confident about the upcoming over-60s egg-and-spoon race. His latest publications include the chapbook Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024), a guest appearance on Incubus Lovechild’s Live ‘25 album (SkidMark Multimedia, 2025).
