Morag Smith was a Cornish poet, painter, writer, and performer. She graduated as a mature student in 2020, gaining a first from Falmouth University, and winning a prize for best dissertation. Zen Buddhist practice was at the centre of her work. She wrote for peace, equality, and enlightened awareness. As a New Traveller she brought her children up close to nature, sometimes in houses and at other times in trucks and caravans. She wrote about her own experiences, within a ravaged landscape, and bore witness to the exploitation of people and planet.

Her work featured in the Cornish anthology “26 Voices for Change” published by the Poetry point Press.

Below is her contribution

Relationship Problem

Smell as leaves split

spitting plant flesh

juicy as a thumb

my girl-face greens

hurts a squished daisy

sticks to my cheek

The mind /partitioned

doesn’t know its walls

as if a shimmering ocean

contained in a small bowl

struggles for breath

a shellfish absorbed in its shell

Our heads have the architecture

but no language to describe

this invisible dissonance

the mind membraned

rests high on caffeine

We are silent

not quiet

under the silence there are things ought to be said

the drum’s perforating

There are things we don’t say:

like if-I-want-to-make-it-with-that-tree

stays in

it’s Secret

an affair

I touch her gently

if no-one’s there

The saints do that

Normally

we touch each other normally

to avert suspicion

I talk about her normally

it’s benign no passion

many words are spoken for/taken

some are sacred

I make maps of language

re-member but

parts that belong together separate

distort

fascists steal a belief

sealing gold inside gold inside gold

credit

not redeemable

if I say anarchysearch engines go bonkers

even though I meant ecology

if I tunnel in

what will I find?

the believer

or the belief?

if I say: Tree

what does it imply?

passion of my body?

love at first sight?

I lie in the undergrowth

naked

if I’m bruised

you did it

if I’m dead

you did it

if I screw the tree I’m mad

you did it

look what you did

I write the things

I’m not allowed to say

I lie in the undergrowth

naked

there is love—it changes everything

Morag Smith

26 Voices for Change is available from Rubicund, Falmouth