Published in Overland Issue 209 Summer 2012 · Uncategorized Winter war Maria Takolander At dawn the birch trees are ice-smacked: shocked and glassy. The man limps across the snow, like a toad, his only illness memory. Light presses against his eyes, like a shard of the bottle he broke over the night — though it was the evening, softer than skin, that had tempted him from hiding. He recalls the suckling: iron-bitter as the earth, yet river-silken. Then the black sky: pricked with stars like a medieval device and cold as iron. How the birch trees, pale as naked men, were flayed against them. Maria Takolander Maria Takolander is the author of a book of poems, Ghostly Subjects (Salt Publishing 2009), which was shortlisted for a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award in 2010, and her poems have appeared annually in The Best Australian Poems (Black Inc.) and/or The Best Australian Poetry (UQP) since 2005. She was recently awarded an Australia Council grant to complete a collection, The Double, which will be released by Text Publishing in 2013. She is a Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies and Creative Writing at Deakin University in Geelong. More by Maria Takolander › 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 24 April 2024 · History Anzac Day and the half-remembered history of the Anzacs in Palestine Bill Abrahams and Lucy Honan Schools are deliberate targets for government-funded mystification about Australia’s role in wars. Such instances of official remembrance crowd out the realities of war, and the consequences of Australia’s role in imperialism. As teachers, we should strive to resist this, and we should introduce our students to a fuller understanding of the history of the Anzacs. 22 April 2024 · Gaming Game-death in infinite game-worlds: Darkest Dungeon 2 Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne Death is the ultimate stamp of value. It was invented to sell arcade-like 1 Up repetition to the home market. To read politics in videogames is to learn to read necropolitically, which is why gamers don’t like politics.