Poems
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We are the Stars and the Sea
By Paris Lay-YeeThey tell us we’re made of bones and skin.
Of cells and blood and genes.
But what they mean to say is -
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How Water Works
By Tony Birchcup a hand
skin and bone
this water well
a beating heart -
the poem begins with a breathing reef
By Eunice Andradaa new cemetery blooms in the heat
we search for the last traces of colour -
PYROCENE TRIPTYCH
By Luke DaviesI: MAHOUT, YELLING
Waking up to still the wind was basic
narcissism and yet the same might be said -
When Dolphins Bring Gifts
By Anna JacobsonThese creatures sense changes
in currents ~ during the pandemic,
dolphins bring gifts ~ sea-treasures
to lure disappearing humans back ~ -
Birrarung Billabong
By Tony BirchSitting with your open coffin thinking and not thinking I want to be with the world and you. I knock against the grain of wood and want to know if you remember the day we took the bikes to the river and rode along the bank against a current willing us home to safety. At the billabong we circled sacred water, threw away our shoes and socks and spla… -
what school never taught me
By Shona Hawkeshow long it takes to heal a barren riverbank
how to keep the faith that the water birds will return
how to train your eyes to see a flash of platypus
hoarding is a crime, not a conquest -
Magnifications
By Anne ShenfieldBefore she connected the headphones
to the tree she said
I’ve been told that ice cracking
sounds like a child screaming -
The Story of the Flood
By Anastasia RadievskaSitting in the wet garden you smashed the land like a cup
– your legs were moving
over a patch of firmament – chant-drying
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Left brain in a bind
By Margaret Owen Ruckert‘A four-year-old in Australia has witnessed on media over 10 deaths by drowning.’
Statistics don’t lie around like sunbathers
but in a healthy respect for the call of water -
Satellite view downwards
By Raynen Bajette O'Keefebread under ocean
scarfs under ocean
prams under ocean
spatula under ocean -
Pellucid dreaming
By Anne CaseyI
To be as complete as the greater part of your self
composed -
Above The Twilight Zone
By Sara MorgilloThe surface rises
slowly
Creeps up shoreline, as we beckon it closer behind our backs
Spreads oil floats bags and bottles -
sun glint drift
By Anne Elveya name for what speaks this day to
water
as creek replies
mirror -
answer
By Eunice Andradaduring the crescendo of the blaze
the sky is a memory of water
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There is Nothing Heavier Than a River
By Georgina ReidIt’s the water that pins
us down.
Our flighty atoms,
our fizzy ideas, -
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cell safety
By Claire Albrechtwhen you rub your eyes
deep with long fingernails
you feel the push and pull
of the rubbing tides -
Barrier Reef
By JV Birch(formerly Great)
The map is neatly new. The paper, parchment. An artist’s impression. Picture book perfect. Not to be used as a navigational aid. I travel the length of Queensland in seconds. Swathes of thick green meet powder blue. A ribbon of colour ghosts its edge with bursts of pink and yellow, orange and purple. Coral before the climate effec…
