Literary Vegan

What words can I use to express my gratitude  for the sun returning? I cross the room and my cat is claw to claw basking in the slant lines of Spring light gilt through the window like she's been given jewellery.  She's saying it for me.  C. LJ Ireton 2026

Every time you let your head rest in my hand, trust tucked against my palm, I remember the first night you did that, much smaller. The unchanging dimension is love. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

I started to write about The Divine, using a garden — but it all came out a classic style; similes and seedlings, hymn-like, something about Eden and growing. What I really meant to say was:  the God of everything  knows my favourite flowers. C. LJ Ireton, 2026

There's a settling  and a thirst  when inside you find your focus; child's button simple your surroundings slow in your heart's haste: every thing but this seems to get in the way you hold up frayed notebooks  to this umbrella of suspended rain; snow, dust, pollen, days floating outside of your path, a falling acorn ache because you know the thing you're  running for under this  mind willow drape — pulse barking loose apple blossoms line your feet; you could make a dress out of them you feel so root beautiful in want, in meeting. LJ Ireton, 2026 *quoting Mary Shelly

The mustard thrush picks at ivy — speckled sun in the brown wood damp. My fingers are numb looking for narrative out here; none of them wondering if they're doing enough of the thing that makes them feel connected to themselves. The squirrel with her cheeks full of leaves could be carrying the universe so sure is she of the nested Spring to come. I scratch my skin in frustration  and fill my cheeks with words.  C. LJ Ireton, 2026

I hear the wind, open-mouthed, rounding the side of iron buildings; a pantomime ghost. I wish endlessly for a gust of butterflies, a spray of ladybirds returning; the burning breath of the living. C. LJ Ireton, 2026