POETRY | Go now, into the field

The time is soon.

For something I didn't realise was ending. The pattern continues, it seems.

When I learn the Rabbit is closing, I'm on the phone, curled into the soft grey corner of my lounge in conversation with a dear friend who thought for sure I'd already heard. It's April and emotionally I'm grey; tepid at best. I feel like a shitty cup of hotel foyer tea steeped in grief and pretending. But I'm also surrounded in all the ways that matter by smart, capable, intuitive women. Women known for doing and getting their hands dirty in the inconvenient truths of life through their art and service. The threads that connect us all are all so very different, but if life were a garden, I think, there's not a standard rose among them. My women friends are wildflowers, all mirth and matter for petals, with stems and spines of steel.

None moreso than Vic.

I think of her - my brilliant friend and her extraordinary little coffee shop where no-one leaves unloved - and I know the decision to close her doors won't have been a light one. She's spent her life being a rising tide for the smallest boats. There's no sinking on her watch. There are folks here that don't feel like they're safe to be themselves, let alone celebrated, unless it's behind doors she's opened to welcome them. I sit there with that old Muhammad Ali saying - 'It ain't bragging if you can back it up' - rumbling through my head. Some people move through the world making safe spaces they have no intention of defending, but Vic fortifies her care of others with a fierceness and integrity that are second to none.

Vickie is so many things. She's like the army: leaves none behind. Like salt: adding flavour to everything, every room, every life she encounters, but also not here to preserve outdated traditions that are comfortable for the privileged and require others feel small. She's like light, too. Vic makes shadows scatter with her truth, integrity and laughter, and she shines daily with a raw, unapologetic brightness that is never sought or obtained at the cost of another's glow.

I hold my palms tight to the mug in my hands, remembering. All the less confident, more fragile versions of me she's so lovingly Sparta kicked out of the creative nest over the years, and taught to stop being so scared of taking up space. I get off my arse, go wash my face clean of yesterday's make up and sorrow. It doesn't matter that tomorrow it will be back. If my friend has taught me anything it's that life doesn't wait for you to live or live it well, before it passes. So get up. And if you can, do..

For Vickie.

She is a sayer of “give me your dreams”.

Lionheart in lavender, she’ll hand

You a Prosecco and before you know it

she has both soothed and set you on fire,

with a spark and the idea of a freedom

to be wholly all that you are.

“Come,” she says, tulle skirted,

wiping hands on kitchen cloth.

“It’s gonna be great.”

She is her father’s daughter,

Her trans sister’s keeper.

Hand to hold and heat seeking

Missile of magnificence,

She cuts through bullshit like it’s fucking cake.

She’ll hand it back to half-baked bakers

and say “Sir do I look like I’m shaken

by your offer of crumbs?

Only the lazy let privilege make them numb.”

She meets the ache of the world

Like a balm.

Asks “How can I help?”

Sometimes I wonder if she knows

that she is loved and lauded in

Rooms she has not yet sparkled in.

She’ll blast Tears for Fears in her Time Machine of a car

Shouting cheers for queers and hold

The space of ages for tears a stranger needs to cry.

There are days when I think on

How the universe works.

The idea that somehow it all fell together

Just so, to create this wonder of kindness

Who says “Don’t be afraid - just breathe and go”.

And without fail, I am confronted with my folly.

There is no falling here.

No accidental trip in time and space

is responsible for this nightscape of grace.

This keeper of keys

Who sets stages for stars to rise like suns

Because she knows before they do,

That we are all one,

And so much more than the dust from whence we came.

Go tonight, dear friend.

Soft as rabbit foot set free in tall grass.

Go out into the dark

and look up at the lights

that led our ancestors, our ancient leaders of land that loves us,

Then led us to this moment.

Let not the day pass without

Knowing that for every one, there was a

Hope and then some, kindled in this space you made for all and cut out none.

Go, dear friend.

This is not the end.

Only a beginning.

                                      © Erin Brown 2025