Published in Overland Issue 221 Summer 2015 · Uncategorized Night air Vanessa Kirkpatrick In memory of my grandmother The full moon washes the garden in light. Bare branches of elm, a tumble of ferns, each stone on the path from my mother’s house to the door of your own. In the notes of the mopoke’s song descending again and again, I fall through night air. Think of your hands, still warm, reaching across the bed as you close your eyes. High winds shunt the ragged clouds so it seems the moon is skating backwards. I want to keep holding the hand that held my own as a child. Loss is a pure tone released from the body. A note in the darkness descending again and again. Vanessa Kirkpatrick Vanessa Kirkpatrick lives in the Blue Mountains. Her first collection, To Catch the Light (2013), won the inaugural John Knight Memorial Poetry Manuscript Prize and was commended for the 2013 Anne Elder Award. More by Vanessa Kirkpatrick › 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 28 April 202628 April 2026 · History Red Hunter: inspiration from history for an eco-socialist movement Tim Briedis There is an incredible history of worker radicalism in the Hunter Valley region. Workers and communists took on governments, police, banks and bosses, unionised whole industries from scratch, and formed militant Labour Defence Armies of hundreds. While these are not specifically environmentalist actions, there is much to take inspiration from in this history of defiance and rebellion. It is a story of class struggle, collective action and combativeness. 24 April 202624 April 2026 · Friday Poetry A slam dunk publication Michael Farrell Australians said, landed among manatees, did useful, / neatnesses, knitted, pleasingly. Spared liaisons, amassed, / mortal dangers, unforeseen, nor kids, prayed aloud.
