Published in Overland Issue 258 2025 · Uncategorized Emote Sarah Penwarden in the universe our planet is a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam (Carl Sagan) The sun is strange today, sky glows dull and light — dust particles — and I am full of others, carrying crowds. The memories of their talk leak from my skin, reminders of their flow, the bagpipe of their lungs empties, fills. We are here — our teeth jar with a similar ache; we are here on this pale blue dot containing all those who have ever lived. Circling round the sun, I ask that there may yet be a turn, a coming home to the common rising-falling of our breath. Sarah Penwarden Sarah Penwarden is a therapist based in Auckland. She has had poems published in Poetry New Zealand, Turbine, Meniscus, Southerly, Mayhem, and takahē. She has had stories published in tākāhe and Meniscus, and a story broadcast on Radio New Zealand. More by Sarah Penwarden › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 18 May 202618 May 2026 · Militarisation Sacrificed for the Pentagon: on Australia’s “security” crisis Gwenaël Velge The connection between the Jarrah Forest, the submarine base, and the data centres is not metaphorical. It is the three pillars of AUKUS, made material in a single city. Pillar III strips the forest to supply aluminium and gallium to the other two pillars, gutting environmental and water security. 15 May 2026 · Friday Fiction The structure Dominic Carew We made it to the park by eight. The winter sun was filtering through the far trees in a wan, lemon trickle, the thin clouds sheets of white. The cool sky a rubbed-at blue. The grass squelched beneath our feet and elsewhere, thinned from wear, the earth stretched grassless and muddy and, in some parts, released a thick mist.
