the courtyard
By Missy Higgins
Published 4 June 2026
it’s in the body
a deep history remembering itself
starting out small
a tiny ball of rolling planets under my ribs
gathering speed and friction
warmth
growing inside me until my chest is full
beaming crashing lights
out through my ribs
it's taking over
I can’t hear a word they’re saying
because I’m thinking of your breath in my mouth
in the courtyard
under the moon
how i’ve remembered how to love again
like planets beginning
my body
remembering you
The first explosion of love. Take yourself back to it, the one that stays with you still after all these years. Tell me what happened in your body. Tell me what still remains.
Missy Higgins
#30in30 #PoetryMonth
My poems are often like a free-form, unstructured set of lyrics. I will often scribble out a little poem without analysing it too much, then if it excites me, I’ll go back over it, find the feeling Ii was unconsciously exploring, then expand on it. There may be one line that encapsulates some universal truth I’m trying to get at and if it’s original (and hopefully catchy) I’ll expand on it. But what’s important is that I get a visceral feeling in my body about the words I’ve put down. That’s when I know I’m on to something.
Poetry and lyrics to me are very intertwined. They are a way of distilling what is overwhelming about the world and making it small and beautiful. Something to hold. An old song of mine refers to trying to tie a knot behind my back. That’s what most feelings are to me. A tangle in the dark. Poetry seems to bypass the intellectual side of the brain where the emotions get stuck. I think only the body can understand how you’re really feeling, and poetry is the language of the body. Music is the thing that carries the poetry and makes it vibrate deep inside you.
