Solstice: Bruny Island

Late evening, sea-blown rain. Light
falls through misted glass. Sky’s
a gull grey, rain’s a flurry of feathers
brushing the iron roof. Sparrows’
monotonous cheep and the soft
rustle as you turn the pages
of your book, make silence deep.
Waves wash the beach. The sound
licks memory’s wounds.
Unuttered grief the canvas stretched
taut across the frame of years.

Nine o’clock. Night shadows fill
the clustering eucalypt and pine
but sea and sky, wet through,
still gleam with light. Gently
our cabin rests on its dune-grass bed.
Sheltered, warm by the fire,
we do not speak – hopes, fears.
Fragile beads, moisture from our breath,
glitter on the window pane.

Lyn Reeves grew up near the beach in Sydney and now lives by the coast east of Hobart. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Canberra, and as well as writing poetry and fiction she has worked in art galleries, been a children’s librarian, a teacher of library and information studies, associate editor for the long-standing literary journal Famous Reporter, and owner-publisher of small publisher Pardalote Press. Her own sixth and most recent poetry collection, Designs on the Body, won the Interactive Press Picks Best Poetry Award. She has read at many festivals and venues around Australia, had her work on the ABC’s national programme Poetica, and been translated into French and Russian. More about Lyn and her work can be found here and here.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. A poetry book will be awarded to each contributor.