Published in Overland Issue 211 Winter 2013 · Uncategorized Autumn day John Leonard A bright day, but a cold day, Wind gusting thought and memory Across the continent, and away Across the world. My thoughts Are not my thoughts but given, Only, I may misspeak them. Sibelius’s Lemminkäinen dies In Tuonela, with snarling brass. Warplanes passing low, Scatter currawongs and magpies From the front-yard, squabbles Forgotten in panic flight. A hundred and sixty years since These valleys were taken – thoughts Of war on the wind, wars before And since. Perhaps we have only been Practising. The grass shivers: ‘Soon the real wars begin.’ John Leonard John Leonard is a Canberra-based poet and author most recently of Braided Lands. His website is jleonard.net. More by John Leonard › 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 11 June 202612 June 2026 · Solidarity The zero-sum state: what the Royal Commission reveals on the future of Muslim life in Australia Sara Cheikh Husain The zero-sum logic that the Royal Commission’s witnesses have voiced through the IHRA definition is a colonial act of oppression. If the state succumbs to that logic, as every indication suggests it will, Muslim political solidarity with Palestine risks becoming not merely unrecognised but structurally criminalised. The full institutional protection of one community will come to be constitutively built on the misrecognition of another. 10 June 2026 · Rural Australia Left in place: how distance in Australia is political Emma Goldrick If we are to better understand inequality within Australia, we must begin with the recognition that disadvantage does not only reside in income brackets or postcodes associated with urban poverty. It is also embedded in the sheer physical scale of the nation and the political choices made about who gets connected to opportunity and who remains at the margins of it.
